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Telco Intelligence for the Digital & Mobile Era

Emerging markets should look beyond the home to cash in on FTTHJohn C. Tanner

Emerging markets pondering whether FTTx is worth the effort and investment should think beyond simply providing superfast fixed broadband to homes – and, ideally, should turn to governments to help them get started.

That was the advice Dr. Bernard Lee, president of FTTH Council Asia Pacific, offered to delegates from emerging mar-kets during the CommunicAsia Summit Thursday.

“Look at your market, and if you don’t see a customer base, try establishing a PPP [private-public partnership] with the government,” Lee said. “It’s a long-term investment and there’s very high capex involved, so you’re looking at return of in-vestment in seven to ten years, minimum. So the best model is a PPP. It’s been suc-cessful in Malaysia and New Zealand.”

Lee also advised emerging market players to think outside the paradigm of straight broadband connectivity for homes in their business plans.

Continued page 15 ...

#4, Friday 20 June 2014CommunicAsia visitors Days 1 to 3: 22,182, Overseas visitors: 11,537 (52%)

Don’t wait to act on big dataJoseph Waring

Businesses need to think differently about big data and have a whole new set of tools to harness insight.

EMC Southeast Asia president Tom Zack asked in his keynote yesterday at the CommunicAsia Summit: What are the risks of waiting to act on big data?”

Like Tesla, disruptive forces are im-pacting almost every industry, he said. Car makers sat around and waited for someone else to do something first, and many are now trying to use regulation to block Telsa. Similar disruption is hap-ping in taxi markets around the world with Uber.

“There are powerful shifts that are impacting leading business.” He noted that it’s not just high-tech industries like electric cars that are being disrupted. It’s happening with mature industries like air conditioning with NES.

“Don’t think your business is pro-tected… otherwise you’ll go away of the dodo.”

He insisted that businesses have to

redefine what it means to deliver servic-es to their customers. The new point of interfacing with businesses is essentially the mobile device. But the growth driver of data is not just mobile, it’s the move to the cloud and figuring out how to bet-ter leverage the infrastructure.

The IT industry, he said, has spent 20 years trying to get people connected to the internet. “Now the digital universe is essentially saturated in terms of people, but is transforming around the idea of the internet of things.”

This digital universe is forecast to reach 4.4 zettabyes this year. In just six years it will expand tenfold to 44 zetta-bytes.

To put that in perspective, EMC sold its first zettabyte of storage in 2010. The next year it had its first zet-tabyte quarter, and in 2013 had its first zettabyte month.

What does this growth in data mean to IT professionals?

There are an estimated 28 million IT

Continued page 14 ...

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WE’RE BIG FANS: Sales staff (from left) Katsuki Misato, Matsuura Nobuhiko and Shibashita Misaki keep cool at the MS Products stand, which features cool design accessories for the iPhone 5/5s/5c. That doesn’t include the fans, incidentally. [Booth: BW2-01]

“FTTx infrastructure can be used for consumer broadband, but it can also be used for connecting base stations – espe-cially mobile-centric countries that are deploying LTE,” he said. “It can also be used for applications such as security, education and e-government. Use it as far you can milk the network and capital-ize on that investment.”

According to FTTH Council Asia-Pacific, there were 92.7 million FTTH users in APAC at the end of 2013. That’s just a third of the overall regional broad-

band market, which is still dominated by DSL, but Lee said that will change by 2017, when FTTH users finally outnum-ber DSL users in the region.

Much of that will be driven by gov-ernment-led NBN initiatives such as those in Singapore, Malaysia, New Zea-land and Australia, although China and India are expected to be major contribu-tors due to their sheer population size, Lee said.

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John C. Tanner

Tektronix Communications announced Thursday that it has been appointed by StarHub to provide radio access network (RAN) performance assurance for StarHub customers.

The RAN management solution leverages Tektronix’s software-based GeoSoft RAN probe solution, combined with its Iris session analyzer (ISA) and Touchpoint customer care solutions, to provide StarHub with end-to-end monitoring customer experience assurance.

GeoSoft RAN probes extract real-time, geo-located performance data, while ISA’s call trace functionality monitors signaling from the device all the way through the network.

Put simply, the solution gives StarHub end-to-end visibility of the customer. And that’s key, because

while most cellcos spend a lot of effort monitoring their core networks, 70% to 80% of problems occur in the RAN, says Mike Ropicky, Tektronix Communications’ VP sales for Asia Pacific.

“For example, the RAN is where the call drops. And with 4G architectures, the intelligence has moved to the edge and the eNodeBs. The problem is that eNodeB signaling doesn’t go to the core,” Ropicky told the Show Daily. “So if a call gets dropped, the core doesn’t know because the eNodeB never sent a message telling it that. So we’re helping them monitor that end to end so they can see the problem.” By combining RAN monitoring and customer care solutions, Ropicky added, “StarHub can identify potential network traffic issues and take appropriate action before they affect the subscriber experience.” Q

Heliconia 3410B

StarHub taps Tektronix Comm for RAN analytics

Amazon unveils Fire smartphoneAmazon has unveiled its long-anticipated Fire smartphone. The device has two USPs – Dynamic Perspective, which uses four on-board cameras and four infrared LEDs to allow users to navigate their phones in 3D without touching the screen; and Firefly, a dedicated button on the screen that prompts the device to identify and take action based on images, text or audio. For example, Firefly can be used to scan a product such as a DVD, and then shop for the item on Amazon.com, or to identify a phone number on a sign and make a call to that number.

Thai 4G auction freeze could cost nation $4bThe decision by Thailand’s military junta to suspend the planned 4G auctions could deal the nation an opportunity loss of up to $4 billion, Frost & Sullivan has estimated. The projected opportunity loss consists of $1 billion in potential network investment and $3 billion in lost productivity, according to the Bangkok Post. The cost will also include an estimated 15,000 jobs that would have been created for the 4G rollouts. AIS will potentially be impacted the most because the operator will have the least amount of spectrum among Thai mobile operators once its concession expires in September 2015.

Reliance Jio to launch 4G in 2015India’s Reliance Jio Infocomm plans to launch 4G services next year, according to chairman Mukesh Ambani. The company has set a target of covering around 5,000 towns and 215,000 villages in the launch phase, Press Trust of India quotes Ambani as saying. Eventually, the company plans for its network to cover all of India’s over 600,000 villages. Reliance Jio, a unit of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, has over 10,000 dedicated employees working with 30,000 professionals from partners and vendors, Ambani said.

ZTE files antitrust suit against VringoZTE has filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission against mobile IP licensing firm Vringo, accusing the company of refusing to license its patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. In a statement, ZTE said despite ongoing efforts to negotiate since 2012, the company has been “unable to reach an agreement with Vringo on FRAND terms... ZTE steadfastly opposes all forms of abuses of intellectual property, and the improper use of patent assets as a tactic in licensing negotiations.”

Mobile data to jump tenfold by 2019Smartphone subscriptions in the Oceania and Southeast Asia region are on pace to grow fivefold between 2013 and 2019, a report from Ericsson asserts. Over the same time, mobile data traffic will balloon tenfold. The region’s large youth population – estimated at more than 170 million - is driving the uptake of smartphones, mobile data services and apps. By 2019, there will be more than 700 million smartphone subscriptions, and around 230 million LTE customers – bringing total LTE penetration in the region up to 20%.

Lack of content availability is top piracy contributor

Eutelsat Communications announced plans Thursday to launch a new satellite for Asia Pacific customized specifically for in-flight broadband services.

The planned Eutelsat 172B, will occupy 172° East, and in addition to carrying a payload of C-band and Ku-band transponders, it will feature

a high-throughput Ku-band payload specifically designed for in-flight broadband, featuring multiple user spots optimized to serve densely-used Asian and trans-Pacific flight paths. Eutelsat says the payload will be the first customized for in-flight connectivity over the Pacific ocean region, delivering an

overall throughput of 1.8 Gbps.Although the 172B isn’t

scheduled for launch until 2017, the in-flight broadband portion already has a customer: Panasonic Avionics, which signed a long-term agreement with Eutelsat America Corp (EAC) on Thursday. Q

Booth: 1U3-01

More consumers turn to online video piracy to watch content due to a lack of local availability than the price of the legal content that is accessible, a new survey suggests.

The survey by Irdeto of 1,600 adults in Australia, India, Indonesia and Singapore shows that 37% named a lack of content availability through legal channels as their top reason for consuming pirated video.

Concerns over price ranked as the second most significant factor, identified by 29% of respondents. On a country-by-country basis, only 19% of Australian respondents named pricing concerns as the most significant factor, compared to

29% in India, 36% in Indonesia and 30% in Singapore.

On average, 29% of respondents indicated that they were unlikely or extremely unlikely to consume pirated video content, and 27% stated that they were neutral.

Irdeto VP for APAC Bengt Jonsson commented that the findings prove that consumers are demanding that “high-quality and secure video content be made available in their region at an affordable price... It is without a doubt that these should be the top priorities for both pay-TV operators and over-the-top service providers in Asia Pacific today.”

When asked what would

Eutelsat plans in-flight broadband satellite for Asia

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deter them from pirating video content, consumers in Australia cited protection of IP as the most significant factor while consumers in Indonesia and Singapore were more concerned about poor quality of pirated videos. In India the top concern was privacy issues.

The research also shows that smartphones (62%) and tablets (46%) are the top two devices that consumers across the four markets surveyed own or plan to buy within the next year. But smart TVs are also growing in popularity, with 34% of consumers owning or planning to purchase one over the same period. Q

Angsana 3A

20 June 2014

LATeST neWS 3

Source: Frost & Sullivan

20 June 2014

OPInIOn4

China now has 155 million kilometers of laid fiber, a 13-times increase from 11 million in 2003. That represents 30% annual growth and accounts for 60% of the world total.

The country has 40 million fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) subscribers, which ac-count for close to 50% of the global total of 90 million. By the end of next year, FTTH is expected to pass 200 million homes and subs will jump to 65 million.

To put those numbers in perspective, Indonesia’s government has set a fiber target of 15 million homes passed by 2014 (it hit 8.2 million in 2013).

Here in Singapore, according to the IDA, fiber now reaches 1.48 million homes and take-up of FTTH is nearly 45% of households.

Based on these numbers and the frenzy of plans for national broadband networks, many may be tempted to think fiber is taking off everywhere. But it certainly hasn’t and growth has actually slowed.

Ovum principle analyst Julie Kun-stler expects the FTTH Council’s goal of hitting 500 million FTTH subs by 2020 to fall short by 190 million – that’s a huge gap.

So what’s holding it back? There are many reasons. LTE has been slow-ing the growth of FTTH as low-end subs are likely to shift to the wireless op-tion. China’s government had to trim its FTTH target next year because the rapid rollout of LTE in China has impacted fiber uptake.

Wei Leping, China Telecom’s chair-man of its technology steering commit-tee, says FTTH costs have to be reduced to be competitive compared to LTE.

Wei, citing results of an in-depth study, says the cost per subscriber for LTE increases as the speed increases but the cost of FTTH is almost flat across

a wide range of speeds. He said LTE is most cost-effective up to 2-4 Mbps. As a result, FTTH needs to be focused on 20-Mbps or above applications and LTE should be focused on 10-Mbps or below.

He says FTTH is well suited for cit-ies and developed regions while LTE is able to cover whole countries in a few years.

Other factors impeding growth are advancements like vectoring and G.Fast that are pushing more bandwidth through copper and prolonging its life (and consequently making fiber less af-fractive).

And there is also satellite. High-

Connected living market potential

STAT SNAP

speed throughput satellites (HTS), for example, has the lowest cost per megabit for some applications, according to some sources. ABS CEO Thomas Choi said this week in Singapore: “There are mar-kets where fiber is not everywhere, and it’s expensive. So there’s huge potential to roll out HTS capacity if you can figure out how to price it for those markets.”

Another major issue is that installing FTTH in apartments and multi-dwelling units can be a challenge, which makes it expensive. And too often the business case for fiber is based on overly ambi-tious assumptions for the key drivers, such as subscriber uptake, ARPU and opex.

Governments, regulators, service providers and vendors need to keep in mind that there is never a one-size-fits all solution that is ideal for all, or even most, market conditions. It’s taken Aus-tralia’s NBN players far too long to fig-ure that one out.

Wireline and wireless are of course complementary and will increasingly be so as fiber goes deeper in all networks and gets closer to the consumer while the length of the wireless portion gets shorter.

IDATE principle analyst Roland Montagne recently summed up their synergistic relationship: “The best friend of fiber is wireless.” Q

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Fiber’s best friend: wirelessJoseph Waring

20 June 2014

InSIGHT 5

Google is reportedly planning to get into the satellite business with a low-earth-orbit satellite constellation providing broadband connectivity to the uncon-nected. And despite the poor track re-cord of previous LEOsat and MEOsat projects, the reported Google project actually stands a chance at succeeding, according to satellite analyst firm NSR.

NSR analyst Prashant Butani said in a research note that while NSR has seen plenty of LEOsat carnage in the past, the firm is “cautiously optimistic” about a Google satellite plan, with signs leaning more towards optimism than caution.

Butani said that while previous LE-

Osat and MEOsat projects either never left the drawing board or fell far short of expectations, market conditions for a new data-focused satellite constellation are more favorable in terms of anytime-anywhere data demand and evolved sat-ellite technology that can support giga-bit data speeds with multi-spot-beams and better frequency reuse.

While the actual plan Google has in mind remains a matter of speculation, a key question will be just how Google plans to reach end-users once the satel-lite links reach the ground terminal – 3G/4G and Wi-Fi are both possibilities, but neither guarantee fast take-up.

“It is obvious that the right answer is not simple, even though the final prod-uct needs to be – especially if it has to provide even ‘3G-like speeds’ to the re-mote villages of India, China or Africa,” Butani said.

Whatever the answer is, it’s going to require serious investment. On the other hand, Butani notes, Google can afford it. And if it can get more people online using Google’s services, “the ads gener-ated therein will end up paying for all such systems and will still leave cash to spare.”

Even so, Butani notes, “NSR be-lieves that given a couple of years, there

will in all probability be a satellite / drone / balloon version of Google’s ISP plans. Our collective ‘gut’ says HTS sat-ellites in LEO will be the ‘killer’ combi-nation, but the lack of past precedence warrants caution.”

It’s also worth adding that the world’s 5 billion “unconnected” are offline for a good reason – a lack of the necessary disposable income to pay for the ser-vice, the devices or even the electricity to charge them (assuming electricity is available in the first place). “If Google’s monthly service is looking at an ARPU level of $2-$5 per month, there will still be gaps to fill,” Butani observes. Q

Telcos are investing more strategically for growth

Google satellite play is so crazy it just might work: NSR

Adaora Okeleke/Ovum

Although there are signs of economic recovery, telcos have not loosened the purse strings. However, they are making judicious investments to deliver a sus-tainable and flexible business.

Ovum’s report “What telcos bought from their suppliers – 2014 edition” ana-lyzes the contracts awarded by the top 24 telecoms service providers (by rev-enue), and gives insights into the trends associated with the buy-side of the tel-ecoms market.

Contract awards grew by 4% despite revenue growth remaining flat in 2013. Telco capital investment picked up compared to 2012, with capex growing slightly from 4% in 2012 to 6% in 2013, after experiencing a drop from 15% in 2011. The main investment drivers were the need to improve the quality of ser-vices, reduce operational costs, and seek revenue opportunities.

The total revenues of our sample set of telcos remained flat in 2013, which was a slight improvement on 2012, with total value standing at $1.1 trillion. The decline in voice revenues was offset by growth in mobile and fixed (broadband) data services. Telcos’ business models and profit margins remain under pres-sure from new technologies creating

substitute services, toughened regula-tions, competition from peers and OTT service providers, and poor macroeco-nomic conditions.

Telcos have, however, continued to invest in network and IT to drive rev-enues and improve profitability. Capex grew by 6% to about $188 billion in 2013, with the average capex growth rate for the 24 telcos analyzed stand-ing at 4%. The relatively high capex growth rate of more than 30% recorded by emerging market operators in China and the Middle East & Africa counter-balanced the declining capex growth rates in some mature markets, for ex-ample Japan. However, capital intensity has remained constant at 17%, which is consistent with Ovum’s expected indus-try capital intensity between 2013 and 2019.

Opex on the other hand dropped by 4%, reflecting the cautious move by op-erators to cut down on operating costs limiting profit margins. The measures taken by telcos to reduce their opex include the sale of unprofitable assets (with running costs that do not contrib-ute to topline growth, but instead hinder the bottom line) and the outsourcing of non-strategic business processes.

The increase in the number of con-tracts awarded in 2013 is consistent with

the growth in capital investments. The number of contracts awarded grew from 270 in 2012 to 282 in 2013. Our sam-ple of telcos rolled out new services (for example mobile payments), launched operations in new geographical loca-tions, rolled out 4G/LTE networks, and upgraded existing network infrastruc-ture to meet the strong demand for high-bandwidth data services.

Consequently, the dominant net-work contract segments in our analysis related to the upgrade of the network core (which consists of the purchase of switching and routing equipment to support the rapid transport of data packets within the network), and to mobile access contracts (which were dominated by contract awards for LTE networks).

Telco investments are driven by the need to improve the quality of services to assure revenue growth from existing customers. This is reflected in the domi-nance of upgrade activities associated with the network core and mobile ac-cess.

However, a number of telcos are keen to move into new industry verticals to improve their revenues, and expect their suppliers to bring more to the table than just their telecoms industry experi-ence. IT, for example, is transforming the fundamental business models in in-dustries such as retail, manufacturing, and healthcare, and telcos want insight into how these engagements could influ-ence their own business. Q

Adaora Okeleke is an analyst for Qvum’s Telco Operations practice

HTS LEOsats could be a ‘killer’ combination, but the lack of past precedence warrants caution

How operators are spending smarter for sustainability

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Cloud-based home management set for a surge

Popularity of devices redefines smart home market

GPON spend jumps 44% YOY in Q1

Virtualization driving data center capacity growth

Global forecast for cloud-based smart home management service installed base

Source: IhS Technology

The global installed base of cloud-based home management services is projected to grow to 44.6 million at the end of 2018, up from 5.6 million at the end of 2013, according to IHS Technology.

The installed base this year for sys-tems that allow users to remotely con-trol household features like lighting and air conditioning is expected to surge by 63% to 9.1 million this year.

Cloud-based home management sys-tems and services are designed for mass-market adoption. Other applications for these systems and services include home

Shipments of smart home devices are expected to grow at about 30% CAGR between 2013 and 2019, but their impact will extend beyond individual device sales, according to ABI Research.

The popularity of these devices, which can be accessed and controlled by smartphone apps as well as the web, helps spawn wider evolution in the home automation market.

“Single-application, connected smart home devices will not only drive connectivity into a wealth of everyday home appliances from air conditioning units to coffee machines, they will also provide a new battleground for new and

The global broadband aggregation equipment market racked up $1.89 bil-lion in the first quarter of 2014, down 5% QoQ but up a healthy 23% YoY, ac-cording to Infonetics Research.

The only equipment category that grew sequentially is PON (+0.1%), the others being DSL and Ethernet fiber-to-the-home (FTTH).

Despite a slow first quarter, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) con-tinues to reap major vectored VDSL2 projects at KPN, Belgacom, Turk Tele-com and Deutsche Telekom, among oth-ers. The region is also seeing a ramp in FTTH spending in Russia and the Mid-dle East.

The virtualization of critical applica-tions, big data and data center consoli-dation will drive the next wave of data center capacity growth in Asia Pacific, according to Forrester Consulting.

The study, done on behalf of Digital Realty Trust, covered decision makers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Aus-tralia.

Results show that the top expected drivers of data center capacity growth were virtualization (47%), big data (46%) and data center consolidation (41%).

When making decisions about new investments, the most important consid-erations for respondents were the data

20 June 2014

BRIeFS6

monitoring, energy management, light-ing control and independent-living ser-vices.

In the Asia-Pacific region, device suppliers are expected to drive the ma-jority of growth. In some cases the de-vice suppliers are expected to focus on the creation of the “smart” hardware, using open standards to make it compat-ible with services from other companies. However, some appliance suppliers are expected to also “own” the backend sys-tem used, creating their own branded smart home service platforms. Q

existing smart home automation play-ers,” says Jonathan Collins, principal analyst at ABI Research.

Google’s $3.2-billion acquisition of Nest, and iControl’s move to acquire the company behind the Piper smart home device, underline the value and impor-tance of consumer devices within broad-er smart home systems.

Start-ups like Revolv and WigWag are looking to provide ways to control multiple smart home devices into a sin-gle automation platform – replacing multiple apps with control from their own. Q

In China, China Telecom and China Unicom are slowing their FTTH invest-ments to focus on LTE rollouts. China Mobile picks up the slack, expanding the China Tietong fixed broadband net-work it inherited in 2008.

No. 2 Alcatel-Lucent finished the first quarter with only around $1 million behind top dog Huawei.

“Compared to the year-ago quarter, Gigabit PON equipment revenue is up a solid 44% in the first quarter of 2014, a result of continued FTTH spending in China and EMEA,” said Jeff Heynen, principal analyst for broadband access and pay-TV at Infonetics Research. Q

center’s location and resiliency. Factors rated as “important” or “very important” included the risk profile of the location (78%), the resiliency level and availabil-ity of the facility (77%), and the level of control over the facility (75%).

APAC companies also prioritized the data center’s network connectivity op-tions and carrier availability and density, with 75% of respondents claiming this as a priority.

About half of respondents said their data center budgets will grow between 5-10% in the next 12 months. An addi-tional 11% are planning to increase their investment in data center facilities by more than 10% over the same period.Q

The global broadband aggregation equipment market is up 23% from a year ago, to $1.9 billion in 1Q14

Source: Infonetics Research

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Tough road ahead for VoLTE

Caroline Gabriel/Wireless Watch

VoLTE (voice over LTE) should see about 20 commercial deployments this year, according to the GSMA, and the slow trickle could become a flood from 2015.

However, the platform faces serious challenges, not least the need to get it right first time, in a world where Skype and Google Voice lurk, and to deploy IMS (in many cases a hammer to crack a nut), not to mention the collapse of voice revenues in general.

But at its heart is the last hope for mobile carriers’ voice-based business – to integrate this into a broader, rich-er communications service that can be firmly differentiated from the web ser-vices and can form the basis of a devel-oper ecosystem.

The challenges in its way are daunt-ing however, for three main reasons – the technology itself; the power of the competition; and the decline of voice and messaging revenues overall.

The technology relies on having sufficient LTE coverage to minimize awkward fallback to 2G/3G; and on de-ploying an IMS core, such a significant undertaking that most mobile carriers are still holding off large-scale rollouts. The need for 4G voice, and simplified routes to IMS, including hosted servic-es, will spur adoption this year but there are other technical barriers too.

VoLTE puts considerable strain on elements like Diameter signaling and roaming. Voice quality of service must be significantly higher than that of over-the-top services to encourage user up-take, but this entails investment in RAN functions to prioritize VoLTE packets over other classes of IP data and to schedule variable VoLTE packet sizes. One reason for operator delays in de-ploying the technology is to avoid deliv-ering a service which is just ‘me-too’, or worse, is an inferior experience to that of 3G voice or Skype.

In addition, all this effort is being made in a market that is delivering a de-clining share of revenues – the ROI is so questionable that some greenfield LTE operators will remain data-only.

Even over-the-top providers have not found a convincing business model for IP voice per se. Companies like Sky-

pe and WhatsApp rely on making their core service ubiquitous and then build-ing higher value revenue streams around that presence – whether premium add-ons for consumers, or advertising-driven options. The MNOs also need to adjust to a world where voice is a loss leader for a wider platform, and this shift will often coincide with the introduction of VoLTE.

In other words, the cost and risk of deploying IMS-based VoLTE can hardly be justified by just hanging on to some of a cellco’s dwindling voice and text revenues – important as these still are. Some carriers, regarding voice as purely a defensive business now, will indeed decide to hang onto 2G/3G voice (based on circuit-switched fallback technology) for as long as possible, even keeping legacy networks alive for this purpose, and then throw in the towel and form al-liances with Skype.

Rich platformBut many believe VoLTE can deliv-

er sufficient differentiation in terms of quality and rich services to underpin a new generation of added value messag-ing and unified communication services, which would appeal to business users in particular and promise a far better expe-rience than either OTT voice and mes-saging, or even traditional mobile voice. As such, the technology has to exist as part of a wider communications offer-ing, whether the carrier’s own creation, or based on the GSMA platform, RCS (Rich Communication Services), now rebranded Joyn.

VoLTE and its IMS foundation do provide some important advantages in building a richer and broader commu-nications platform than the over-the-top firms. IMS provides a common frame-work for voice and messaging, which brings the benefits of a standard, inter-operable approach. This will enable rap-id development of a device ecosystem once there is a critical mass of carriers with VoLTE deployments, and relative-ly simple extension of current roaming agreements to include 4G voice.

Just as important, IMS provides many of the building blocks to create a differentiated service platform, via inte-gration with rich media services such as presence and video sharing, which can

drive new ways of communicating. The combination of high speed, low latency LTE; an HD voice technology optimized to take advantage of that network (un-like most over-the-top applications); and integration with many multimedia services, does promise to improve call quality and spur new services as well as a third party added value applications.

Act like an OTTBut for all the benefits of VoLTE/

IMS, in many situations mobile opera-tors may find themselves launching too little, too late. Not only is the growth of the over-the-top services formidable (WhatsApp reached the half-billion user mark in April and a huge 72% of those log in daily), but they are also acquir-ing rich media credentials through new standards, notably WebRTC.

RCS has seen limited uptake, despite years of effort by the GSMA, partly because it requires interoperability be-tween carriers – which has only been achieved in Spain and Korea so far – and partly because its functionality does not provide noticeable superiority over existing services. Some operators have taken the route of launching their own

over-the-top rich communications apps, like Orange’s Libon.

For most, success will lie not in try-ing to cling onto the traditional consum-er voice market, but in opening up APIs to encourage a developer ecosystem, which can create new types of services based around VoLTE. These would be likely to target enterprises and verticals rather than taking on WhatsApp head-to-head, and that would be aided by the development of multi-personality hand-sets, with separate business and personal modes. The former could harness the security and QoS of VoLTE, while the latter was focused on Facebook.

In this way, operators also need to start behaving more like their over-the-top challengers, innovating in digital and network neutral applications and tapping into a broader base of program-ming talent. Only that radical change of mindset will help them retain a place in the voice market – no longer a dominant place, but at least offering a distinctive service for key user groups, in order to generate new revenue streams based on voice for the first time in a decade. Q

Caroline Gabriel is research direc-tor at Maravedis-Rethink

Commercial deployments are well underway, but it may already be too late to save the voice business

20 June 2014

InSIGHT8

20 June 2014

InSIGHT 9

Billions of dollars at stake in switching economies

Steady growth ahead for APAC mobile broadband

Ronnel Domingo

In markets where it’s easy for consum-ers to switch service providers, they’re doing so in droves, mainly due to poor experiences. In Singapore and Malaysia alone, that’s resulting in almost $70 bil-lion in revenues potentially hanging in the balance.

According to research released by Accenture, there is a potential $16 bil-lion of revenue at play in Singapore, and $53 billion in Malaysia, represented by the so-called “switching economy”.

Accenture defines a “switching economy” as comprising the revenue potential at play driven by consumer switching.

The concept calculates the potential expenditure shift resulting from custom-ers that switched from one provider to another (complete switch) as well as those that will potentially do so as they started to take portions of their spending to new providers (partial switch).

Frustration in SingaporeAccenture’s Global Consumer Pulse

Survey found that in the past year, al-most 70% of Singapore consumers switched service providers due to poor customer service experiences. Switch-ing rates were highest among retailers, banks, hotels, internet service provid-ers and airlines – making companies in these sectors the most vulnerable, but also giving them potentially the most to gain.

The survey found that customers are increasingly frustrated with the level of

services they experience – 80% of re-spondents are frustrated that they have to contact a company multiple times for the same reason; 79% by being put on hold for a long time; and 78% by hav-ing to repeat their issue to multiple rep-resentatives.

There are also frustrations with mar-keting and sales practices – 73% are frustrated by the wait for a response af-ter requesting customer service; 79% by companies promising one thing, but de-livering another; and 78% are frustrated with unfriendly or impolite customer service agents.

Against the high percentage of cus-tomers reporting they had switched pro-viders in the last year, 83% said that the company could have done something differently to prevent them from switch-ing.

These customers said that first-contact resolution (59%), or proactive contact (48%), would have influenced their decision to switch. And, while the survey showed that price still plays an important role in the choice of provider, the customer experience is equally im-portant.

Meanwhile, says Accenture, Ma-laysia’s switching economy was being driven by the failure of most Malaysian companies to keep their customers from switching service providers even if 98% of consumers are using at least one digi-tal channel to search for information via highly-influential corporate sites.

Results show that in the past year, 79% of Malaysian consumers switched service providers due to poor customer

service experiences. For these custom-ers, both “price” and “customer service” are the main factors when selecting new providers.

Also, just 19% are satisfied overall with their existing service providers and only 17% of customers find that their providers are very effective at deliver-ing convergence between traditional and digital interactions.

Further, 73% of switchers are driven by price when considering new provid-ers, putting Malaysia well above the Asia-Pacific average of 67%.

Additionally, 72% of consumers who switched say companies could have done something to prevent them from switching - with contact resolution be-ing a significantly influence on their de-cision to switch (52%).

Moreover, about 94% of the con-sumers read about companies’ products and services on social media sites and close to 46% do it several times a week.

“Low levels of customer satisfac-tion and changing customer behaviors in the digital marketplace are driving the switching economy that presents op-portunities as well as threats,” said Joon Seong Lee, managing director of sales and customer services at Accenture ASEAN.

Despite a high percentage of Ma-laysian consumers using digital tech-nologies, there is a gap between digital use and the ability of companies to use them to improve customer experiences. Malaysia scored lower than emerging market averages, with just 17% of cus-tomers finding the service providers ef-

fective in this area.The good news is that in both mar-

kets, there are examples of companies who get it right and deliver valued cus-tomer experiences. Such companies exhibit five common high impact capa-bilities, which Accenture dubs the “cus-tomer-driven digital blueprint”:1. Hyper-relevance. This means us-

ing predictive analytics to provide a more tailored customer experience with more customization and per-sonalization.

2. Relationships at scale. Use digital to bring the intimacy of the corner store to all customers and then give them more convenient access and more tailored services that matter to them.

3. Seamless experience. Integrate in-formation and processes that enable customers to flow easily across dif-ferent channels when and how they choose.

4. Inherently mobile. Learn from cus-tomers about what they want to do differently with mobile, and invest in mobile services and support capa-bilities that stand out to customers.

5. Social media. Harness social media in order to deliver up-to-the-second customer preferences, greater levels of trust, a mechanism for direct and dynamic interaction and more and more usable data upon which busi-ness decisions can be made. The Accenture Global Consumer

Pulse Survey covered 12,867 respond-ents in 32 countries and across 10 indus-tries. Q

In Singapore and Malaysia, customers are switching operators in droves, with almost $70 billion hanging in the balance

Asia-Pacific’s mobile services market will grow to reach $271.4 billion by 2014, according to IDC.

While voice services will see slower growth, data connectivity and mobile broadband revenue are expected to ex-perience a strong growth pace.

“From 2012 to 2017, IDC projects

that the growth rate for voice services revenue in APeJ will slow down and achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.5%.” said IDC in its press release. “However, data connectivity or mobile broadband revenue will grow at a CAGR of 19.3% from 2012 to 2017.”

The growth in data connectivity

and mobile broadband was attributed to three key areas, namely smartphones penetration due to their affordable pric-es, rollout of 3G and LTE licenses, and mobile user mindshift to OTT services.

IDC defines OTT as the delivery of instant messaging, video, audio and oth-er media over an open internet/broad-

band connection directly to user.While the report focused on the

impact of 3G and 4G infrastructure deployment on traditional messaging services, there is no doubt that access to faster mobile broadband will play a large role in increasing the use of mo-bile devices. Q

Mobile subs to surpass global population in 2015

Total mobile subscriptions are expected to grow from 6.8 billion in the first quar-ter of 2014 to 9.2 billion by the end of 2019, according to the latest Ericsson Mobility Report.

In 2015 the total number of mobile subscriptions is expected to exceed the world’s population. In the first quarter of this year alone, mobile subscriptions have grown by 7% YOY with 120 mil-lion net additions.

The Asia-Pacific market continues to see a significant increase in mobile sub-scriptions with 1.4 billion net additions by the end of 2019. This market repre-sents more than 50% of mobile subscrip-tion additions globally.

Markets such as Japan and South Korea took up LTE subscriptions ear-lier than emerging markets. By the end of 2013, LTE penetration had already reached over 30% in Japan and over 50% in South Korea – the highest in the world. It is estimated that Japan and South Korea will together account for around 25% of the world’s LTE sub-scriptions at the end of 2014.

China has started to roll out LTE and

will add a significant number of LTE subscriptions during the forecast period, reaching over 700 million by the end of 2019. This means that China will repre-sent more than 25% of total global sub-scriptions for LTE.

Last year around 75% of mobile subscriptions in Asia Pacific were 2G, whereas in 2019 around 80% will be 3G/4G.

Also, global mobile broadband sub-scriptions are predicted to reach 7.6 bil-lion by 2019 and will gain an increasing share of the total mobile subscriptions over time. By the end of 2019, mobile broadband subscriptions are expected to account for more than 80% of all mobile subscriptions, compared to around 30% in 2013.

Mobile broadband will also gain a larger share of total broadband subscrip-tions in many markets, complementing fixed broadband, and in certain segments replacing it. In developing ICT markets, smartphones already provide consumers with their first internet contact.

This is due to limited access to fixed internet, combined with the influx of

cheaper smartphones. The majority of mobile broadband devices are, and will continue to be, smartphones.

By 2016 the number of smartphone subscriptions will exceed those for ba-sic phones and by 2019 the number of smartphone subscriptions is expected to reach 5.6 billion.

About two-thirds (65%) of all phones sold in the first quarter of 2014 were smartphones. This grew from just about 50% a year earlier and doesn’t show any sign of slowing down, Ericsson report-ed. Of all mobile phone subscriptions today, around 35% are associated with smartphones, leaving considerable room for further uptake.

Compared to today, a smartphone user in 2019 is expected to consume al-most four times the amount of mobile data per month. This contributes to the 10-fold growth prediction in mobile data traffic between 2013 and 2019.

Further, the number of active cellular M2M devices will increase by three to four times by 2019 from 200 million at the end of 2013.

While the majority of cellular M2M

devices today are currently GSM-only, this is expected to shift by 2016 when 3G/4G will represent the majority of ac-tive cellular M2M subscriptions.

“We see cellular M2M taking off,” said Rima Qureshi, SVP and chief strat-egy officer of Ericsson. “Over time, cel-lular M2M services and applications re-lated to intelligent transport systems, for example, will require very short latency in order to be efficient.”

Ericsson estimates that by 2019 more than 20% of the active cellular M2M devices will be connected to LTE sub-scriptions. Also, new device-to-device and M2M applications are seen as a key focus of 5G networks.

“The growth and the evolution in M2M and the 10-fold growth in mobile data traffic strengthen the emphasis on network performance, handling com-plexity and maximizing the user experi-ence,” said Qureshi. “This in turn puts even higher requirements across the net-works and the operations and business support systems of the future.” Q

By 2016 the number of smartphone subscriptions will exceed those for basic phones

20 June 2014

InSIGHT10

Source: Ericsson Mobility Report

Asia Pacific mobile subscriptions are set for 1.4 billion net additions by the end of 2019

ENIT15AdW265xH350P.indd 1 11/6/14 11:24 AM

ENIT15AdW265xH350P.indd 1 11/6/14 11:24 AM

Tax issues complicate cloud business

Shelia Lam

One of cloud computing’s advantages is its borderless nature. Users of cloud ser-vices can access compute-power without managing the requisite IT infrastructure or worrying about data center locations.

For public cloud providers, it’s a rev-olutionary business model that leverages economy of scale and low-cost locations to support customers globally. But these advantages could contain a hidden cost – a significant tax bill.

According to Channing Flynn, part-ner, global tax technology sector leader for EY, the borderless nature of cloud computing creates confusion about the location of business transactions. With-out a standard between jurisdictions, the tax liability for cloud-based transactions is obscure at best.

Flynn said it is typical to find a US-based cloud provider offering infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) through data centers in multiple countries – the US, Germany, India, Australia, etc. Their customers could be based in Asia and have software installed at all these lo-cations to support transactions for end-consumers, who access the software in their own locations.

Defining profit taxCountries hosting these data cent-

ers see IT services being delivered and business conducted within their jurisdic-tions, thus it’s there where they charge taxes. According to Flynn, this creates a state of confusion that can cause havoc with tax bills.

Since most tax authorities have yet to update up their tax regulations for cyberspace, many don’t have a clear an-swer on how cloud service providers are (or should be) taxed. For cloud provid-ers, major controversy lies on defining the contribution from each data center location toward their profit.

“Certain countries believe they de-serve the lion’s share of the value,” said Flynn. “Some countries will show up and assess [the service providers], then send them an unexpectedly and signifi-cant tax bill.”

Further complications arise with dif-ferent definitions toward the contribu-tion of the data centers. Flynn said some servers in the cloud could be “dumb

servers” for backup and storage, while others process algorithms and analyze data to increase revenue. Different func-tions of these servers contribute differ-ently to the taxable profit, according to different tax authorities.

Flynn said it’s not uncommon to see the intellectual property of the software based in a software lab, where it is de-veloped and algorithms for analysis take place. But the data to support such analy-sis could be located in a different country.

“If the software sits in Country X and the server that processes the data sits in Country Y, tax authorities in Country X and Country Y are not going to agree on which country has the right to tax the profit from the transactions,” said Flynn.

Apart from the implications on profit tax, public cloud service users may sub-ject to the tax controversy from the indi-rect tax perspective, particularly in with-holding tax.

According to Jo-An Yee, partner of tax and business advisory services, tech-nology, media and telecom tax leader for Hong Kong and Macau, EY, the tax controversy for cloud users lies on the withholding tax for different types of cloud services. Depending on different tax authorities, the payment on IaaS, PaaS and SaaS cloud services could be

considered a royalty and thus subject to withholding tax.

“Most countries do not have clear guidelines in defining whether different cloud services payments are considered as royalties,” said Yee. “But it could be the user’s obligation to withhold tax for the cloud services provider.”

The Hong Kong-based tax expert said that tax authorities provide tax de-duction to taxpayers. But if a cloud user fails to compile its withholding tax obli-gations, it may not be able to claim the tax deduction.

Location matters“[As a cloud user] I need to find out

from my local tax authority whether this payment is treated as a royalty,” she said. “I also need to check with the cloud provider to include the withholding tax in the payment, but it may disagree.”

To protect themselves and ensure the businesses are entitled to the tax deduc-tion, Yee suggested users demand their cloud service providers to include a tax-gross up provision in the contract. “This means the payment covers all the appli-cable taxes,” she said.

Although the provision of cloud ser-vices is borderless, the location of the servers and data centers is critical from

a tax perspective.Flynn said cloud computing tech-

nologies and their associated business models are changing so fast that many tax authorities are still trying to under-stand it and apply their tax regulations to the appropriate parties.

“[Tax authorities are sending high tax bills] not because they are being immoral, they do it because they don’t understand what is happening,” he said.

Flynn added that certain countries are more demanding and aggressive on charging cloud providers and users.

To help cloud service providers and users to better understand the cloud-readiness between different countries, EY conducted a study in 2012 to review the tax considerations related to cloud computing services in 11 economies.

The study indicates countries rated with high risk due to the lack of tax trea-ties and undeveloped tax laws include China, India, and the US. Meanwhile, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the UK were rated “yellow” – sig-nifying an increased risk to adverse tax consequences, but an existing treaty may mitigate the increased level of risk. Countries with a low risk of creating ad-verse tax consequences include Ireland, Netherlands and Switzerland. Q

The advantages of the borderless nature of cloud computing could contain a hidden cost – a significant tax bill

20 June 2014

InSIGHT12

20 June 2014

PROducT LOcATOR 13

F iberHome has unveiled its latest 100G solutions for different application scenarios.

FONST5000 is FiberHome’s 100G OTN platform which offers large electrical switch capacity (up to 6.48Tbps), compact size and 54 slots with

100G backplane bandwidth each. FiberHome 100G Optical Transport Units are known for their low power

consumption and compact size with the second generation ASIC digital processing engine.

FiberHome said it has worked on 100G and beyond optical transmission technology for years. The company has also conducted studies on “ultra-high-speed,” and “ultra-large-capacity” optical transmission technologies and used the results of the studies to develop its 100G solutions. Q

For more information visit us at www.fiberhomegroup.comBooth: IE3-01

H uawei has launched its latest line of switches for converged networks.The S12712 Agile Switch and S12708 Agile Switch are designed for

large-scale, converged enterprise networks. They support integrated wired and terabit/s wireless communications,

as well as customization and a smooth migration to software-defined networking (SDN).

The new products also offer high capacity intelligent switching and a total switching capacity of over 37 Tbps.

In addition, the products are built on Huawei’s Super Virtual Fabric (SVF) technology and an updated eSight management tools that provide control over applications, devices, and allow up to 65,536 users per switch. Q

For more information visit us at www.huawei.comBooth: 1H3-01 / BG3-07

S pacecom is gearing up to provide more satellite services to Southeast Asia, Russia, and China with AMOS-4 at a new orbital position, 65°E.

Multiple Ku-band and Ka-band transponders on AMOS-4 create a platform to enable cross-band, cross-beam connectivity options and

broadcast and broadband reach across vast urban and rural areas, the firm said.The company said the addition of AMOS-4 to the Spacecom satellite constellation

strengthens its position as a global satellite operator. The fleet currently consists of AMOS-2 and AMOS-3, co-located at 4°W, providing services in Europe, the Middle East, the US East Coast, and AMOS-5, located at 17°E, delivering C-band and Ku-band capacity to the entire African continent.

Spacecom plans to launch AMOS-6 in 2015. Q

For more information visit us at www.amos-spacecom.comBooth: 1V3-01

V erimatrix is showcasing its IP-centric video services for progressive pay-TV operators at CommunicAsia.

The new solutions enable integration of traditional broadcast and internet delivered services via home gateways and cloud.

Verimatrix’s Video Content Authority System (VCAS) sets the industry standard in multi-network video security by integrating broadcast, multicast, and internet-delivered rights management.

The solutions, according to Verimatrix, deal with the challenges of cable operators and emerging technologies. Q

For more information visit us at www.verimatrix.comBooth: 1M2-07

N ewtec has unveiled a new multi-service platform that allows satellite service providers to easily build and adapt their network as their business grows.

The Newtec Dialog platform supports multiple satellites, multiple frequency bands, regular and spot beam satellites.

Other features include highly efficient DVB-S2 ACM technology, hierarchical QoS management with 7 classes, and advanced network management system capabilities, both GUI and API, including VNO support.

The pay-as-you go modularity provides service providers with more flexibility and enables faster network rollout.

Featuring Newtec’s Clean Channel Technology and Mx-DMA return link technology, the platform can help service providers achieve 15% efficiency improvement and 50% bandwidth savings, respectively. Q

For more information visit us at www.newtec.euBooth: 1P2-01

SES is showcasing its latest direct-to-home (DTH) and data services in Asia Pacific.

The company said its upcoming SES-9 satellite is set to expand the provision of DTH and mobility communications in the region. The satellite

will also enable the rollout of Ultra HD via satellite, the firm said.The company also unveiled is SAT>IP technology, including the new IP-LNB, to

help make delivery of satellite TV to multiple devices - including TVs, computers, and tablets - commercially viable. Q

For more information visit us at www.ses.comBooth: Hall C, Level 1

FiberHome bares 100G network platform

Huawei unveils ‘agile’ switches for converged networks

Spacecom focuses on new areas for AMOS-4

Verimatrix offers IP-centric video solutions

Newtec offers newest satellite platform

SES offers latest direct-to-home satellite services

There is lots of news of public cloud being abandoned by Korea’s largest steel company and biggest airline and instead turning to private clouds to regain control in the wake of the spying scandal. But the outlook is mixed as the maturity of high-speed internet means many other companies are continuing to adopt public cloud.

Yoo Sang Leol, NetID

Document services vendor Fuji Xerox Asia Pacific has teamed up with Australia’s Intelledox to jointly sell cloud-based e-form and business transforma-tion products in APAC.

Intelledox specializes in business process digitalization products, including e-forms, document generation and data transformation.

The two companies will combine their capabilities to offer an integrated e-form and business transformation suite that interacts with an organiza-tion’s core data. They will work toward giving customers the ability to produce targeted, per-sonalized documents - includ-ing proposals and license ap-plications – with a single click.

“For a small Australian technology company, a part-

Fuji Xerox teams up with Intelledox

Australian businesses have been reluctant to put their data in the cloud until Amazon opened up a data center and cloud use has since skyrocketed. They are worried about storing data offshore. Those on the west coast using offshore data centers have been told to bring their data back.

Dr Terry Percival, NICTA

Security? Sort of, but for Southeast Asia, no, not very much. But there is big pressure from the US to block Chinese brands. But what really changed last year is a move from single-vendor to multi-vendor systems, like at AIS, which is good for us.

Tracy Yu, Sunwave Communications (China)

nership of this scale is sig-nificant. Intelledox’s software will enable Fuji Xerox cus-tomers to transition from com-plex paper processes to fully-digitalized, cloud-based and dynamic e-form solutions that make capturing and transform-ing data simple,” said Intelle-dox CEO Phillip Williamson.

Fuji Xerox general man-ager for marketing Takashi Nawata added that the com-pany will work to ensure inter-operability of the e-form suite with its existing products and services.

Other products in Fuji Xerox’ SaaS portfolio include cloud-based document man-agement suite Working Folder and business collaboration ser-vice SkyDesk. Q

Intelledox Booth: BM2-04

Has your business been impacted by revelations of government spying?

“Emerging markets should look beyond the home to cash in on FTTh” from page 1...

20 June 2014

LATeST enTeRPRISe neWS14

IT’S A dEAl: (left) Takashi Nawata, senior general manager, marketing, Asia Pacific operations, Fuji Xerox, (Right) Michelle Melbourne, co-founder & executive director, Intelledox

Amrish Kacker, partner at Analysys Mason, said that gov-ernment support would be a key factor in any FTTH project in developing markets, although such support can take different forms – full government fund-ing, PPP, or financial incentives such as tax breaks, subsidies or

USO schemes. “The key thing is to have

a national broadband plan,” he said. “That’s the first step.”

Even for developing coun-tries that embrace FTTH plans, operators will have their work cut out for them. FTTH still faces numerous rollout chal-

lenges, starting with the high cost. Kacker said that while FTTH deployment costs are lower in emerging markets in Asia compared to developed markets, this is mainly due to cheaper labor costs. “If you look at it in terms of the capex per subscriber, FTTx is by far

the most expensive broadband technology option.”

Other challenges include civil works and construction barriers and even the compe-tency of technicians charged with installing the equipment,” said Lee of the FTTH Council.

“Even something such as

proper cleaning of connectors is something technicians get wrong,” Lee said. “Lack of cleanliness is responsible for 90% of reported faults, but we see cases where people use tis-sues or their fingers to clean the connectors. There was one case where the man licked it.” Q

The cloud is still scary for some people, but overall acceptance is growing. Are people running away from cloud because of these security scares? No, I don’t see that happening.

Deep Singh, Softsolvers (Malaysia)

SMEs are accepting cloud, but there is still concern at the top end, in banking and finance. But I’m seeing the adoption is there.

Allen Lee, Malifax Technologies (Singapore)

Caroline Gabriel/Wireless Watch

The 3.5-GHz band is currently the dark horse of LTE. Tradition-ally used for fixed local loop and Wimax services, it has many potential benefits for more modern applications, notably small cells, especially as it is a near-global band. Some companies are placing high hopes on a future flourishing of this spectrum, thanks in part to the FCC’s support for 3.5-GHz as an international small cell band, which could be valuable to add a layer of dense capacity to LTE services.

An FCC proposal issued in April and labeled US Citizens Broadband Radio aims to earmark 3.5-GHz as an “innovative band” for small cells. It claims its design has sufficient flexibility to adapt as the FCC decides on the specifics of its licensing scheme and band plan.

This is only at the preliminary stage, and the FCC still has to finalize many details, but the general objective is to open up 3.5-GHz via a flexible spectrum sharing model, which could be the model for other frequencies too.

As first-wave LTE deployments, most of them in paired FDD spectrum such as 1.8-GHz, start to reach ca-pacity, many operators plan to ‘den-sify’ using small cells and TDD spec-trum, which is particularly suited to downlink-heavy applications and for minimizing interference in multilayer hetnets. In the US, this prospect, and pressure from spectrum reformers, has led to moves to open up 3.5-GHz, even though much of it is occupied by gov-ernment users.

The FCC supports a three-tiered model, with spectrum sharing in the government frequencies, to open up a total of 150 MHz for consumer ac-cess (including mobile), carrier small cells, backhaul and fixed wireless. The agency initially targeted the frequen-cies from 3550-MHz to 3650-MHz back in 2012. These are used by fed-eral and other bodies and would require spectrum sharing, with the incumbents

3.5-GHz TD-LTE could flour-ish as small-cell enabler

China Unicom to build global center in HKChina Unicom will invest hK$3 billion ($387 million) to build its first overseas integrated

telecom facility, the China Unicom (hong Kong) Global Center. The company said the

new ICT facility will allow it to enhance the network services it can provide. The center

will encompass a global NOC with subsea cable landing station, a global network

solutions and support center, a cloud computing service platform, an internet data

center, a hong Kong service platform and a product innovation and developer center.

Cisco to buy Tail-f to boost cloud virtualization portfolioCisco plans to pay $175 million to acquire multi-vendor network service orchestration

provider Tail-f Systems as part of an effort to expand its cloud virtualization portfolio.

Cisco aims to use Tail-f’s products and services to allow customers to simplify and

automate the provisioning and management of physical and virtual networks. The

acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Upon completion, Tail-f employees

will be folded into Cisco’s cloud and virtualization group.

Equinix completes expansion of HK3 IBX DCEquinix will next week launch its expanded hK3 IBX data center, to help meet ongoing

market demand. The company will also launch Equinix Cloud Exchange, a next-

generation interconnection solution for cloud buyers and service providers. Frost &

Sullivan has estimated that the hong Kong data center market will grow at a CAGR of

15.3% to $802.6 million by 2019.

Optus Business enhances integrated IT unitAustralia’s Optus has announced a series of enhancements to subsidiary Optus

Business’ integrated ICT organization. The company laid out a new product and services

roadmap, including plans to open a security and excellence center, increase its focus on

business application services and roll out an online self-service portal. Optus Business

also announced new leadership appointments, including a VP of product and ICT and

a VP for business applications. Optus will, meanwhile, will invest A$1.2 billion ($1.13

billion) into its fixed and mobile networks, with plans to achieve 90% national 4G

coverage over the next 12 months.

NTT Com Security adds new capabilities to MSS platformNTT Com Security has augmented its wideAngle managed security services (MSS)

platform with new security information and event management (SIEM) capabilities.

The company asserts that the enhancements – including time-based analysis and a

correlated log analysis service – can improve detection rates for unknown security risks

by up to 500%. The new functionality also includes enhanced packet capture support

for IDS/IPS vendors, and a set of new algorithms for the MSS analysis engine that can

provide tailored detection for specific organizations.

20 June 2014

LATeST enTeRPRISe neWS 15

OVERNIGhT wIRE

having some form of priority access. In April the regulator sought comments on adding a further tranche in 3650-MHz to 3700-MHz, which is used by WISPs to provide rural broadband. Interopera-bility would be required across all three tiers within the 150 MHz, to help drive economies of scale.

The idea is to have a tier of unli-censed spectrum for ‘opportunistic’ use plus priority access tiers, some of which could be auctioned or lightly licensed. The FCC wants a flexible li-censing system with low administrative costs, short terms of engagement, an unlicensed portion, and support for mi-cro-targeted deployments which could also be easily aggregated into larger footprints. That system would encour-age all kinds of participants from large carriers (always needed to inject funds into a new band) to localized operators or single-application service providers.

Over in Europe, CEPT has agreed to harmonize spectrum between 3400-MHz and 3600-MHz for ‘TDD-pre-ferred’ allocation and 3600-MHz to 3800-MHz as TDD-only, while there will be auctions in Japan this year. The four Japanese operators plan to bid and to launch services in 2016. Q

Caroline Gabriel is research direc-tor at Maravedis-Rethink

Vancouver-based Incognito Software is carving a niche beyond BSS and OSS into the growing IP address manage-ment space. IPAM is about optimizing networks for IPv4 and IPv6 addresses across the many devices that connect to it at any one time.

Incognito CEO Will Yan

said the company offers man-agement of IP-based set-top boxes, smartphones and other devices. More than 500 op-erators are customers with 200 million devices under their care.

The company also provides reports for operator to analyze bandwidth usage and choke

points so that network enhance-ments can be better planned.

StarHub in Singapore is one of Incognito’s biggest cus-tomers and uses its service to control devices across its mo-bile, DSL and IPTV networks, offering a unified view of the client. Q

Booth BH3-01

Viettel, Vietnam’s largest tel-ecom operator, has announced plans to expand it video offer-ing with a new cable service us-ing Ericsson’s multi-platform video processing equipment.

Viettel Television CTO Le Van Khuong said: “The addi-tion of cable services further strengthens our standing in the TV market and puts us in a

great position to deliver more content to our subscribers.”

The telco will deploy Er-icsson’s AVP 4000 encoder, which enables the delivery of cable TV in addition to IPTV services. The vendor will han-dle design, supply and systems integration for everything from acquisition to transmission at the head end.

Ericsson said the AVP 4000 offers high picture quality in MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC in both SD and HD. Powered by its professional video chip, the company says the encoder offers the highest performance and broadest capability in the industry on a single platform across all applications. Q

Booth: BC3-01

SES flying high on DTH market growth

GNUM works with telcos to offer URL-based calling service

John C. Tanner

Direct-to-home (DTH) services are proving to be a significant growth market in Asia Pacific, which is good news for satellite operator SES, whose own DTH reach in the region had grown 15% year on year.

SES announced at Commu-

Fiona Chau

Singapore-based GNUM has introduced a URL-based call-ing service and plans to work with telcos to jointly offer the OTT service to mobile users in Asia in next few months

The service – enabled by GNUM’s patent-pending per-sonalized URL calling tech-nology – allows mobile users to default their mobile number as a personalized URL link so

Incognito offers IPAM for converged operators

Viettel expands into cable

nicAsia2014 that its DTH reach in Asia Pacific passed the 41 mil-lion subscriber mark in 2013, compared to 36 million in 2012.

SES says its DTH growth in APAC has been powered mainly by South Asia and Southeast Asia, with key deals signed with operators in the Philippines, In-donesia and Thailand. Asia Pa-

they can receive calls from the web directly without the need for 3G, Wi-Fi or downloads.

“Basically what we are try-ing to do is to create an online virtual URL for mobile users by which any callers can call you by just a click on the personal-ized URL,” said Clarence Tan, CEO and founder of GNUM. “This is like Gmail, which will stay with you for life.”

So how does it work? When a call is made on a web browser,

cific is expected to see significant growth in both DTH and data markets over the next few years.

According to Euroconsult, the DTH subscriber compound annual growth rate (CAGR) will reach 7.8% for Asia (compared to 5.2% globally) from 2013 to 2022. SES says it’s carrying over 1,000 DTH channels in Asia,

it activates a VoIP call through the GNUM SIP proxy server. The terminating number is then verified and directed to a ter-minating trunk media gateway (TMG) that is connected to the PSTN. The gateway converts the VoIP SIP call to a PSTN compatible call and establishes a call to the terminating user.

Tan said the company is now in talks with some telcos in Asia to bring the service to their mobile customers and

over 90 of them HD. Meanwhile, SES is also mov-

ing into ultra HD – the company announced earlier this week that Eurovision is using its satellites to broadcast select matches of the 2014 FIFA World Cup to audi-ences in ultra HD and HD.

However, it’s early days for ultra HD, especially in Asia Pa-

expects to have something out “within the next two months.”

He said the most likely us-ers are telcos’ enterprises cus-tomers who are doing a lot of business through online por-tals.

“Telcos that have a lot of SME customers can bundle this virtual online URL service as a VAS for them,” Tan noted. “It’s like a virtual international toll-free concept and will open up another channel for customers

cific, says Glen Tindall, VP of Asia Pacific sales at SES.

“But it is on the horizon, and that horizon is coming up fast,” he told the Show Daily. “Ultra HD is core to our future. We ex-pect 40% of households in Asia Pacific will be watching ultra HD by 2025.” Q

Booth: 1R2-01

to communicate with them.” The service also appeals to

mobile users using social me-dia actively so they can share their personalized URL via Fa-cebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

GNUM is a spinoff of Global Roam, which provides communication services such as VoIP for telcos like SingTel and StarHub. Q

Booth: BF2-05

THE SPlICE OF lIFE: Booth assistants lily Wee (left) and Nadia Taky are ready to splice your fiber with Inno Instruments’ new ARC fusion splicers. Nadia’s View 5 is the standard model, while Lily’s View 7 is the high-end version with larger battery capacity and adaptable to for harsh weather conditions. [Booth: BV4-01]

20 June 2014

LATeST neWS16

20 June 2014

InSIde THe SHOW 17

dO YOU NEEd A BAG?: Because FiberHome booth assistant Rachel Quek has a bunch of them to give away if you drop by to check out FiberHome’s technology portfolio. [Booth: 1E3-01]

THIS BOOTH IS OVER-KOAlAFIEd: Vanda Martins (left), manager of events and sponsorships, and Dr Terry Percival, director for broadband and the digital economy, promote breakthrough Australian research at the NICTA stand – which also has koalas, obviously. [Booth: BM2-06]

WE HAVE A WINNER: Telecom Asia magazine spent much of CommunicAsia2014 not only pounding out this fine daily newspaper you are holding now, but also collecting name cards at our booth. That culminated in a lucky draw Thursday afternoon for a free iPad Mini. And the lucky winner was Tshering Norbu, general manager of ISP Buthan Telecom (a.k.a. DrukNet). That’s him on the left, receiving his prize from Telecom Asia publisher Gigi Chan. [Booth: BV2-01]

GOING OVER THE TOP: Yi Xin (left), sales director for China, and Tor Helge Kristiansen, VP of product management, demonstrate Conax’s two new OTT solutions for Asian pay-TV operators – a secure OTT client, and a solution for streaming live TV to multiscreen devices. [Booth: 1G2-14]

HE IS YOUNG, HE IS FREE, ETC ANd SO ON ANd THINGS OF THAT NATURE GENERAllY: local musician Eddy Irwan entertains the crowds at the Huawei stand. We’re told he takes requests, but he doesn’t know any songs about Td-lTE, so don’t ask. [Booth: 1H3-01]

TAKE IT INSIdE: Axell Wireless booth assistant Jean Toh demonstrates the benefits of Axell’s idDAS in-building coverage solution, which allows operators to save capex and opex by dynamically allocating indoor cellular capacity where and when it’s required. [Booth: 1H4-12]

BYOD is ‘tip of the iceberg for change’

Integrated channels crucial for mobile advertising success

Workshop 1: How to Monetise the Future of Voice and Video in the WebRTC WorldLevel 3, Heliconia Room 3502

9.30 Business Intro to webRTC – what are the Revenue Opportunities for Both Telco/Mobile Operators?

Dr Terry Percival, Director, Broadband and Digital Economy, National ICT Australia

10.45 what webRTC Means to Enterprises Dr Silvia Pfeiffer, webRTC Product Manager & Team Lead, National ICT

Australia11.45 webRTC in the Real-world Guest Speaker: Chew weng hock, Regional Director, SEA & ANZ, Dialogic

Workshop 2: Navigating the Internet of ThingsLevel 3, Heliconia Room 35049.30 Building an IoT Ecosystem Shane Murphy, VP & General Manager, KORE wireless Asia Pacific10.45 how Big Data will Generate New Revenue Streams in The Internet of

Things? Jeff Stark, Executive Vice President of Platform Sales, KORE wireless 11.45 Cities in the Age of Analytics Guest Speaker: Dr Dean Economou, Technology Strategiest, National ICT

Australia

Workshop 3: Security and Privacy in Mobile TechnologyLevel 3, Hibiscus Room 36029.30 workshop highlights: Back to Security Basic 101 Mobile Technology Privacy workshop leader: Robert Sim, CISSP, SSO10.45 workshop highlights Mobile Technology Privacy Security Strategies for thing is to come workshop leader: Robert Sim, CISSP, SSO11.45 Data Protection and Security Guest Speaker: winnie Chang, Partner, Taylor Vinters

Workshop 4: Driving Change through Social Media Level 3, Hibiscus Room 36059.20 Opening Remarks Anant Choubey, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Asia-Pacific, Capillary

Technologies9.30 Personalising Customer Engagements through Smarter Analytics and

Social Media Driven Marketing (Session 1) Anant Choubey, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Asia-Pacific, Capillary

Technologies Aurelia Leopold, Client Director for Key Accounts, Capillary Technologies11.00 Personalising Customer Engagements through Smarter Analytics and

Social Media Driven Marketing (Session 2) Anant Choubey, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Asia-Pacific, Capillary

Technologies Aurelia Leopold, Client Director for Key Accounts, Capillary Technologies

For complete programme, visit www.communicasia.com

highlights for Day Four: Friday, June 20

20 June 2014

SuMMIT18

COMMUNICASIA2014 SUMMIT

Don Sambandaraksa

Enterprises must respond to a wave of mobility, connectivity and millennials entering the workplace. BYOD is just the tip of the iceberg, with wearable tech and M2M soon to cause even greater waves of disruption, said Matias Heila-la, head of strategy and business devel-opment for Asia and Africa at Vodafone Global Enterprise,

It is really a question of how to em-brace device freedom rather than a ques-tion of BYOD or CYOD.

Delivering the opening keynote at CommunicAsia Summit session on Con-sumerization of the Enterprise, Heilala said that digitization, mobilization and globalization are the mega-trends of which BYOD is just one symptom.

“Of 21- to 32-year-olds in Asia, more than half said they would contra-

vene corporate policies and use their own devices. Obviously you cannot fire half your workforce overnight,” he said.

He also noted that 45% of millen-nials would rather take a lower paying job if they could keep using their own devices.

Heilala quoted Huawei and Intel figures that showed their BOYD poli-cies had resulted in between 40 and 60 minutes of extra productivity a day, but stressed a need for work-life balance.

Later in the panel discussion, SAP AP-J CIO Manik Narayan Saha said his company has 65,000 employees, but it feels like he has 65,000 CIOs telling him how IT should be run because of BYOD.

SAP allows BYOD and has a limited subset of applications that it supports on employee devices through an internal app store. Q

Fiona Chau

Retailers that want to capitalize on mo-bile advertising must do so across multi-ple channels – including both the physi-cal and digital store environment – if they want their mobile marketing cam-paigns to lead to extra sales.

Susanna Hasenoehrl, head of APAC for NTS Retail, told an audience at the CommunicAsia Summit Thursday that retailers shouldn’t think of mobile, on-line and in-store channels as separate.

“As an entity, your customers are in all these channels and they want a seam-less experience across different chan-nels,” she said. Providing that seamless experience can lead to in-store conver-sion of sales.

Hasenoehrl offered the example of Russian consumer electronics retailer M Video, which launched an omni-channel

strategy in 2011 that included integra-tion of different sales channels, enabling customers to search online, shop in stores, buy online and receive purchases via in-store pickup or home delivery. As a result, M Video saw a 38% leap in sales, with profits up 11%, and was able to open new stores at a rate of 35 to 50 per year.

Another key component to a suc-cessful mobile advertising campaign is personalization – delivering the right message/content to the right person at the right time and place.

“Instead of blasting out all the stuff that your customers don’t need, market-ers should show a selection of goods and services that particular person is actually most interested in,” Hasenoehrl said. “If I want to buy something, help me with that. Don’t confuse me. Make it relevant to me.” Q

“Don’t wait to act on big data” from page 1...

professionals around the world now. Over the next six years, with data increasing tenfold, the number of new people in the industry is expected to grow by only eight million, so the workloads will jump sharply and they will have to manage five times more information than they do now, he said. Q

Congratulations to all winnersWe want to congratulate this year’s winners for their outstanding accomplishments.

The Awards, now in their 17th year, recognize achievements across the region in an industry that has underpinned Asia’s economic success. Thirteen awards were given away to honor the industry’s best-performing companies and individuals.

Please go to awards.questexevents.net for full details

Partner Sponsor Gold Sponsors

Supporting Sponsor Wine Sponsor Organizers

Telecom CEO of the Year

Sung Min Ha SK Telecom

Best Asian Telecom Carrier

Globe Telecom

Best Mobile Carrier

SK Telecom

Best Broadband Carrier

Hong Kong Broadband Network

Best Emerging Markets Carrier

XL Axiata

Best Community Telecom Project

Smart Communications

Most Innovative Telecom Project

Globe Telecom and Google

Best Cloud-Based Service

NTT Communications

Most Innovative Partnership Strategy

YTL Communications and Google

Most Advanced Approach to CEM

PT. Indosat Tbk

Best Managed Services Provider

NTT Communications

Best International Wholesale Carrier

BT Global Services

Best Data Center Services Provider

Equinix

Winners list

Group PublisherGigi Chan gchan@questexasia.com +852 2589 1338

Asia Pacific Nicole CheungAccount Managernicolecheung@questexasia.com +852 2589 1310

Regina KeungBusiness Development Directorreginakeung@questexasia.com +65 9790 4480

North America & EMEA Zena Coupé Sales Manager zcoupe@questexasia.com +44 1923 852537

Sponsorship opportunities for 18th Telecom Asia Awards 2015, please contact:

For more information,please visit us at booth # BV2-01

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