Martin Creaner's Blog

Enabling The Connected Life

Martin Creaner — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:00:00 GMT

Interesting article on the potential of M2M to grow to a $1.2trillion market by 2020

I like the "Connected life" phrase they are using. Much more along the lines of how I see the future industry than the phrases we have been using for the past couple of years - such as "Telco 2.0" . This goes far beyond anything that old Telco can do by itself, and even viewing the opportunity through the lens of Telco is fatally flawed. This new services industry is all about understanding how the world works today and how people currently use, or desire to use, technology. M2M, Mobile Payment, eHealth, Automotive - Success in each one of these opportunities fundamentally depends not on the technology that facilitates it, but on a core understanding of why these new services make sense. Few if any of these services are based on doing something that could never be done before. They are based on the principle of technology making it more convenient to do the things that otherwise you would have done in a less convenient way. So "Connected Life" as a concept captures this quite well.

Its all about improving life through seamless connectivity. But the potential of the connected life will not be reached without unleashing the power and creativity of the thousands and millions of small creative potential service providers. And this is where the TM Forum can help with standard ways that the creative players can plug into the core infrastructure of the communications and internet industry to craft services that will enhance the Connected Life. Standards in how information is structured; standard APIs for connecting to the core infrastructure; and standard ways for accessing core industry platforms that can offer location information, authentication and secure billing.

This isn't as difficult as it sounds, and something that is likely to be a win-win for all the players who really embrace it.!

The Growth and Evolution of Cable

Martin Creaner — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 12:14:00 GMT

Cable television has come a long way since Ted Turner launched the first basic cable network, WTBS, back in 1976 and HBO began delivering programming across the U.S. around the same time. Today if you have fewer than 100 televisions channels coming into your home, you may as well be living in the Dark Ages.

But for the better part of the history of cable, it was viewed as a pretty niche offering – delivering video content over coaxial cable to the home. Cable companies really had no competition, and in fact their whole business model was built from the ground up as a franchise that was designed to be in only about 60 percent of homes in any market. So for several decades, cable hummed along fairly quietly with many homes paying for basic and premium channels, and as long as the picture quality was good no one really thought twice about their cable provider.

However, the world is a much different place today. Deregulation, the rise of competitive providers and interest in being all things to all people find the cable industry in an interesting situation. Besides facing competition from their usual nemesis, satellite, over the past five to 10 years they've also had telcos breathing down their necks. In fact, as everyone has gotten into everyone else's business, we're in the curious situation of phone companies delivering video services, cable companies providing wireline phone service and every combination in between.

But as cable is coming off of a decade of high growth in North America, Europe and parts of Asia (Japan and Korea), and moving firmly beyond just video distribution to encompass high-speed data, voice over IP and beyond, operators are looking at what they can do to get and stay ahead of the curve.

Growing Beyond a Niche
Last November, TM Forum made a joint announcement with CableLabs, the non-profit cable R&D consortium that develops new technologies and conducts conformance and compliance testing of products. This collaboration between our two organizations will help leverage TM Forum best practices and standards for the cable industry. The bigger news here is that essentially the U.S. cable operators, which all have stakes in CableLabs, have decided that their two core standards bodies going forward are going to be CableLabs and TM Forum. Where TM Forum comes in is on management software and on the OSS/BSS side, so this is a huge step forward for our organization.

When we started getting involved with the cable industry some years ago, this was the vision we had, but it seemed an awfully long way off. IPDR joined TM Forum in 2007, and at the time there were a number of cable companies using TM Forum standards, but we had no formal cable initiative. We were approached by IPDR to house its activities within TM Forum, and then a number of cable companies and suppliers joined our organization. So it took a few years to get things going, but today we have a good number of cable-related projects happening within TM Forum and the membership to go along with it.

We've brought on board North American players such as Cox, Charter, Time Warner Cable, Rogers and Brighthouse Networks; European providers such as UPC, British Sky Broadcasting, ComHem and Ziggo; and other companies such as CableVision SA Argentina.

In terms of initiatives, we're making a big push and commitment into ensuring that our Frameworx components do what the MSOs need them to do. One is to keep developing and advancing IPDR. Another is to look at how to make the Business Process Framework (eTOM) suitable for a cable environment. Even though eTOM is an independent standard and not linked to any particular technology or solution type, its terminology is very telecom-centric. And even though cable has almost identical needs to telcos, we need to tweak the taxonomy in eTOM to make it suitable for widespread use.

Besides making eTOM more cable-friendly, we're looking at specific activities around business intelligence and analytics for cable, and following on from a very successful cable-based Catalyst at Management World Americas 2010 to the next phase we'll be demonstrating at Management World 2011 in Dublin this May.

Things have really changed for cable since the early days of just a handful of channels coming to your home over the earliest generation of set-top boxes. We've gone from that to potential deals such as the biggest U.S. cable company – Comcast – getting close to finalizing a deal to purchase NBC Universal - something that is sure to fuel a lot of debate The deal would also give Comcast a 30 percent stake in Internet streaming company Hulu.

Whether this particular business deal is an anomaly or the shape of things to come in the cable and content space, it's clear that cable is not out there doing its own thing anymore. It's become very intertwined with the wider communications industry as well as newer Internet players and the content producers. Anyone who hopes to do business in this space – or really anywhere in communications – needs to keep in mind that this is a far different market than 30 years ago when just seeing anything beyond the 'big three' television networks was a big deal.

What drives industry adoption of standards?

Martin Creaner — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:57:00 GMT

It's sometimes frustrating how long it takes for standards to become adopted by the industry - particularly in the OSS/BSS arena. So here are some thoughts on why this is so and why there is some light shining at the end of this long tunnel.

First, lets look at some of the reasons for slow adoption of standards. While you can always argue that the right OSS/BSS standards simply have not been available over the last 10 years, the recent strong levels of Frameworx adoption show that there is a growing widespread acceptance that the TM Forum Frameworx standards. There is a wide range of case studies available showing SPs implementing TM Forum standards – particularly Frameworx components (http://www.tmforum.org/CaseStudies/2212/home.html). In a survey the TM Forum ran a few months ago of ~4,000 members, around 50% and 30% are using or evaluating eTOM and SID respectively.

However, anyone closely involved with this industry knows that the first rule of standardisation is that standardisation happens when buyers (in this case the telcos) demand it! Until relatively recently standardisation in the OSS/BSS arena has been a “nice to have” feature for Telcos rather than a must have. While SPs have always intellectually understood that the whole life cost of a standard solution will be lower than that of a proprietary solution, most have been driven by the short-term imperatives of cost reduction. But we have now reached a tipping point - with rapidly shrinking SP margins and new revenue opportunities not appearing - that the pain that most telcos are under, has driven them to genuinely demand standards – both from a cost reduction and an increased operational flexibility perspective.

Another factor in this equation is that, ‘demanding’ standard from suppliers has actually been a difficult process, with many suppliers able to claim conformance to standards, while still being essentially proprietary. This has radically changed over the past 24 months.

First, the TM Forum has introduced a Frameworx conformance certification program for suppliers and this (for the first time admittedly) has given the telcos an objective mechanism by which to demand standards conformance from its suppliers.

Second, the TM Forum has released a series of RFx templates that allow SPs to ask for standards conformance in a consistent fashion, which is not only improving the adoption of standards, but also reducing the cost for suppliers in responding to the numerous RFx’s that they receive.

Third, there has been a massive growth in training over the past 12 months, with over 2,000 people passing the basic or advanced level examination in knowledge of TM Forum standards.

The result of this is a virtuous circle which makes standardisation easier to ask for, which increases the overall demand for standards, which makes it easier for suppliers to build a business case to make their products more standards conformant.

So in summary

Make standards that are fit for purpose and that address key points of pain for SPs

Make it easy for the SPs to demand standards conformance from their suppliers

Make it easy for suppliers to demonstrate conformance

All the above are now in place, so prepare yourself for a year of hugely accelerated standards adoption.

Integrated strategy essential in the evolution towards the operator as an enabler

Martin Creaner — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:00:00 GMT

An interesting addendum to yesterdays blog on the importance of M2M and the operator as an enabler. Essentially this article says that if you are going to invest in M2M then go for 3G technology as opposed to 2G. While 2G is a lot cheaper in the short-term the whole life cost over the expected lifetime of 25 years is punitive.

This is a good example as to why the next phase of telecoms needs to be driven by an integrated strategy, rather than a set of individual departments making short-term tactical decisions. For example, the whole industry approach to exploiting the games and entertainment market over the past 3 years has been plagued with this sort of tactical, short-termism. Separate islands of functionality were set up by operators with their own very limited budgets and P&L's. And when these islands failed to deliver significant short-term revenue (of the scale that impacted the whole organisational top line) they were starved of resources and eventually outsourced to low cost managed service operators.

Operators need to ensure that they don't make these same mistakes when going after the M2M business and the other B2B opportunities in healthcare, automotive and finance. If they leave the exploitation of these opportunities to different business units going after distinct tactical opportunities then they are likely to fail. This phase of their evolution has to be driven by a top-down strategic vision and plan!

The penny has finally dropped!

Martin Creaner — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 10:42:00 GMT

For the past 18 months I, and many others, have been preaching the vision of the Operator becoming an enabler for other players in the industry. This concept is often referred to as Telco 2.0, and refers to Operators exposing their core capabilities such as billing, location and authentication for use by third parties. I was particularly interested last week to see two articles on topics related to the Service Provider as an enabler. One related to Q-Tel's vision of the SP as an enabler, and one related to China Unicom's vision of the future growth of the telco lying in M2M and home environment management.

Both of these are interesting in their own right, but what's even more interesting is that it's symptomatic of the fact that the argument is over. Every operator that I spoke to at our event in Orlando last week had bought into the concept of the operator as enabler, and was much more interested in discussing how to make it happen in the most efficient and sustainably profitable fashion. Thats what the TM Forum is focused on in our Enabling New Services initiative. The Enabling New Services Initiative helps TM Forum members more effectively develop, monetize, and manage new services which involve multiple third-parties in complex B2B partner and app-development environments.

While it is encouraging that the penny has dropped across the industry, wishing won't make it a reality. Defining suitable standards and best practices will require a concerted effort by multiple TM Forum members over the coming year!

A new mountain to climb for for telecoms regulators

Martin Creaner — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:44:00 GMT

The primary goal of telecoms regulation over the past three decades has been to 'encourage' a monopoly industry to become a competitive industry. The trail-blazers for this were the US and UK, and they created a model that was replicated and twisted to suit other environments dependent on size, culture and speed ambitions. And by and large the regulators have been successful. Whatever way we measure it, they have caused a competitive global telecoms industry to come into being. Perhaps it could have been done faster, or more effectively or slightly differently - but essentially the job has been done. Of course there is always more to do, but they are probably now at the point of diminishing returns. So what now for the regulators? Essentially they have two choices (a) pack up their bags, pat themselves on the back and silently step aside and let the competitive telecoms industry do its thing; or (b) find some other mountain to climb.

The mountain I would like them to climb would be to focus on the challenge of using customer data. Current thinking is all about data protection - i.e. what cannot or should not be done with customer data. That view needs to be turned on its head. I'd like regulators to think about how they can use their position to create a dynamic market for the monetization of customer data, where the owner of that data (i.e. the customers themselves) can trade their own data as a valuable asset. Rather than treating the monetization of customer data as a taboo subject, lets create a vibrant market where the customer can consciously sell access to his or her data to people & companies who want to use it. Perhaps it can be monetized with cash, but more likely we will monetize it in a barter fashion - where access to personal data is traded for units of service (e.g. voice minutes, free texts, free music, games, etc..). This is done from place to place at present by individual operators, but with variable rules and regulations. Coming up with a sensible framework for this, that is understandable by both the individual consumers and the service providers alike would unleash a new generation of user centric services.

So rather than stifle a market opportunity, lets regulate it for proper commercialization!

Why Operators need to become more 'Useful' !

Martin Creaner — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 10:58:00 GMT

Over the past week I have been talking to a lot of people about how Operators can fight back against the constant erosion of their position in the new services market. Operators have moved from being the entity that created and delivered the service, to the entity that provides the pipes along which the services are delivered. This over-the-top challenge is nothing new and is something that has been talked about for the past 24 months. But it is becoming clear that the operators re-engagement in the services value chain, will depend entirely on how 'useful' they are to that value chain. Of course operators will still offer some homegrown services, but these are likely to be swamped by the volume and variety of services offered by 3rd parties. Operators can no longer claim an elevated position in this value chain, but have to become B2B enablers to third party content, service and application providers, and will have to scrap it out with other enablers for a slice of the revenue.

And the revenue share they get will be directly related to how "useful" they make themselves in the service value chain. If all they are is the dumb-pipe then they share very little revenue. If they offer good platforms that the content providers want to use they gain additional revenue share. If they can additionally provide valuable customer behaviour data back to the content providers then they can secure another chunk of revenue share. It's all about becoming more and more valuable to the content, service & application providers as part of their overall solution.

Many operators are looking at exposing a wide variety of internal capabilities such as their billing & location capabilities for use by third parties. Security is undoubtedly an issue but certainly not an insurmountable one as this sort of platform as a service is becoming quite common across the world. The bigger challenge for operators is in the productising and scalability of their platforms. These platforms were designed for internal use and exposing them to third parties is not a trivial productisation challenge.

Another big challenge/opportunity that operators have is in the understanding and management of customer and product data to support improved customer experience. The raw data exists in a variety of forms across the environment, but mining and cleansing that data is a major challenge. Data analytics is becoming an increasingly important topic for operators as they attempt to get a better proactive handle on what their customers are doing, what services they are accessing and what their current real-time experience is. If they can understand that, not only can they improve their own customer experience and explore new business models, but they can broker that data back up the value chain to the content, service & application providers to help them improve the targeting & delivery of their overall solution.

So, my advice for future operator success - focus on offering useful capabilities to your B2B customers at competitive prices, and become the kings of customer data.!

LTE is coming....but don't fall for the hype!

Martin Creaner — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:52:00 GMT

There is an emerging question as to why we are bothering with LTE – or rather why we are treating it with such urgency. It has been widely publicized over the last year that there will be22 operator LTE launches in 2011, but as far as I know there have been 3 so far this year, so it looks like we can expect a flurry of launches over the next 4 months!!

The reality is that 3G is really only now delivering the promise of 3G, with good stable high data speeds and a wide availability of handsets in multiple global regions. LTE when launched will undoubtedly be a data only service, available in very, very few regions, and with voice-centric handset availability being a couple of years in the future. There is also the question as to whether LTE will offer any competitive differentiation.

I’m a great believer in the need for continuous improvement, but don’t fall for any hype that tells you 4G ishere. The first early shoots of 4G are here, but for the foreseeable future we are trying to create a ubiquitous 3Gworld, and a set of services that enables operators to make a decent return from their existing investment.

Data Analytics might be the "White Knight" for the beleaguered Service Provider

Martin Creaner — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:56:00 GMT

The mobile industry content play is becoming a very confused space. With the growth of free apps, downloaded by users on unlimited bandwidth 3G packages, the operators are losing interest in content and gradually surrendering that space to the OTT players. But rather than surrendering the space they need a mind-shift to the principle that “somebody has got to pay”. If the apps are free then they need to be monetized through some other mechanism such as advertising, but despite the hype that really isn’t happening at the moment.

I'm a firm believer that Analytics is a critical component for major operators to get them back into a fighting position with the likes of Google. Business analytics not only is a critical enabler for monetizing mobile advertising, but also allows the service providers to better understand their customer's preferences, their preferred services, their purchasing/browsing behaviour and their calling patterns. And this in turn can help with delivering a well managed customer experience and in the targeting & timing of offers and content to the right user at the right moment.

An additional key strength of the Service Providers when compared with the big internet players such as Google, is their ability to give away valuable ‘incentives’ (such as free texts/minutes) that have minimal incremental costs, in return for securing strong voluntary customer data, and permission to use that customer data. I know several customer profiling experts who believe that voluntary,self-entered customer data is worth far more than the customer data that is implied from sophisticated mining techniques. My view is that both are complimentary, and service providers are in the lucky position to effectively pursue both avenues.

So contrary to popular belief, service providers are not doomed to being completely powerless in the face of the surge from the Apples & Googles. They have their strengths, and they just need to focus and play to these strengths!

A week is a very long time in iPhone 4 and Android world

Martin Creaner — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 09:50:00 GMT

I blogged last month about the iPhone business model and stimulated huge discussion about whether the business model had sufficient longevity or whether it would have to change to survive. Over the past couple of weeks things seem to have moved very, very quickly. Firstly we had the iPhone 4 antenna debacle - leading to iPhone 4.0 being compared to Microsoft's Vista slump. There is an element of Apple living by the media sword and dying by the media sword. When they do the smallest good thing they secure thousands of column inches in the world press. Similarly when they do something wrong they get a disproportionately savage backlash. Whatever the rights and wrongs of their dodgy antenna, it is clear that their brand has been damaged and only time will tell whether the damage is permanent or transient.

While this has been going on there has been a resultant surge in interest in Android handsets. The most significant may well be the launch of the £99 ZTE developed Android phone. Probably plenty of technical compromises to get down to this price point, but its the sort of price point that will catapult the Android OS to billions of customers. And this then fundamentally changes the dynamics of the Apps market.

They say that a week is a long time in politics; it also seems to be a long time in the smartphone world!