HP Communications World, Vienna, December 12 2006

 3G video services from HP
The theme of the conference being imagine the future and make it happen. So, I thought of a future 3 years from now, when 50% of the users have a much easier time. This future is the result of telecom evolution : in the 80's when we invented the PC and the mobile phone as a personal productivity tool - we had e-mail and a phone book. In the 90's where we got the web, every body had the phone and used SMS. And the waves of 2000 are evidently about communities and multimedia. So in 2010 there will be 800 million 3G multimedia phones WW, mostly in Asia and 100 million in Europe.

Blue Ocean Strategy
I used 3 recommendations from the book :
1. Create and capture new demand : create new 3G video user experiences combining elements from content discovery, personal messaging, marketing and branding, on-line connectivity.
2. Make the competition irrelevant : optimizing the value delivery chain, especially by attracting content creators, media industry, Web 2.0 developers and addressing separately the tasks of merchandizing and operating networks
3. Align the whole company in the pursuit of differentiation : allow permanent innovation by providing web tools to designers, a video studio in the network.

 BBC’s 3G video for participation TV
Chris Yanda, Executive Producer at BBC Mobile presented some projects :
- Olympics 2004 : video highlights trial partnering with Orange and O2, 2500 video downloads and 2.01 million page impressions
- Grand National 2005 : Live Video Streaming to mobile
Doctor Who Tardisodes Spring 2006 : thirteen 60 second mini episodes about next episode characters and adventures
- SpringWatch 2006 : Live WAP cam, streams of animals in the wild
- BT Movio : broadcast digital TV trial using DAB-IP

BBC match of the day
 

The presenter trails topical question inviting 3G video messaging commentary from fans. Comments shown on air. Users record video message on a 3G phone by dialing a short code and send it to the program.
BBC findings

The response is immediate
You need to tell people about it
Ask good questions
People like to be on TV
Keep it simple

Telecom World, Hong Kong, December 4-8 2006

 ITU TW is moving
This year the show landed in Hong-Kong but with a low attendance. The next edition comes back in my hometown in Geneva. Our HP team was there to present the alfa-version of our Instant Communication solution over an IMS networks.
 TD-SCDMA starts slowly
I went to the anticipated press announcement of 3G trials with China Mobile, China Netcom, China Telecom with 10,000 users., Datang announced trials in Hong Kong, and ZTE in Romania. Alcatel Shanghai Bell confirmed their collaboration with Datang Mobile, and in parallel to ZTE released TD-SDMA supporting HSDPA. By 2008, TD-SCDMA will support the same 3GPP's evolution roadmap as W-CDMA. In the short term the terminal supply may be limited.
 PCCW 3G Video
PCCW mobile demonstrated their Easy Watch 3G video monitoring service. Unique pan-tilt and zoom functions give more control than usual fixed services. Video-calls are charged $1-2/min for on/off-net calls. PCCW also offers a video conferencing services. In parallel PCCW has a DVB-H trial with Motorola.
 Video devices
Huawei demonstrated video with the Viewpoint familly. A number of 3G-TDSCDMA video devices were also anounced.

Orange partner's Camp, Cadiz, October 2006

 Orange network evolution to 3.75G
3G video content is a success :
Orange TV has 40 K active subscribers to 50 linear channels (news, video dramas,…) usage reaching 5 million mobile video sessions. The Prosumers (producers and consumers) will have a strong impact on the business models.
 (A refresher for my HP colleague Lam Nguyen who teaches at ENST)
2G = GPRS : 20kb/s-300kbps 120-700ms-120ms latency, 300ms-10s jitter,
2.75G = EDGE : 384kbps-1000kbps
3G = WCDMA 386kbps 175ms-250ms latency, 50ms jitter
3.5G = HSDPA 1.8 Mb/s (2006)- 3.6Mb/s (some countries) 120ms (down to 20ms) latency.
3.75G = HSUPA (in 2008) 1.2 -5.8 Mb/s
 Social networks (Galina Guyot, another HP collague kept her good smile during parties, despites rainy days in Spain).

Brands and recommendations are key in word-of-mouth marketing. Power is moving from institutions to communities, to social leaders, trendsetters. David Nahimini, Orange

Social Networks
[month/month retention rate; Nielsen May 2006]
67% Myspace (120 M users)
57% MSN groups
51% Facebook (12M users)
49% Xanga
47% MSN space

Top on-line brands
[audience, usage/month]
105M Yahoo! 3:00
95M Myspace 0:45
92M MSN 1:38
92M Google 0:52
70M AOl 6:11
53M Ebay 1:53
40M Mapquest 0:10
38M Realnetworks 0:47
37M Amazon 0:19

Symbian S60 usage patterns, Nokia
Functions
35%,messaging
22% voice calls,
16% multimedia,
14%PIM
3% configuration,
3% browsing
2% games,

Usage of applications
64% have 1 application
23% have 5 add-ons

36% games,
25% utilities,
16% multimedia,
9% messaging,
5% browsing,
3% productivity,
3% PIM,
2% infotainment