| 2010-02-12 |
The revenue opportunity for mobile connected devices in saturated markets |
 | At the end of 2009 there were approximately 4.6 billion mobile subscriptions in the world, of which the vast majority were mobile phones and mobile broadband modems. With current growth rates there will be more mobile subscriptions than people on earth well before the end of the decade. The rise of various mobile connected devices (other than phones and broadband modems) can boost the total numbers by a ten-fold if the industry finds a way to harness the potential.
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| 2010-02-12 |
Smartphones 2010: Time for Operators to Take an End-to- End View |
 | Smartphones have developed into one of the most lucrative segments of the mobile industry. Shipments have increased dramatically, and so has the number of vendors, OS and applications. Operators can benefit from this development, but also need to understand the risks. Northstream recommends operators addressing the potential of smartphones in an end-to-end approach, embracing four key operator assets: Network capabilities, user data management, service & tariff strategy, and device portfolio.
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| 2010-01-18 |
Your next BMV will come from an app store... |
 | The media frenzy over mobile applications continues. Consumer brands launch applications. Mobile OS providers scramble to position their platforms as attractive for an applications business. Operators try to open application stores. Are applications THE killer-app??
This white paper charts different application store efforts and cautions operators to consider the relative merits of focusing on applications. We also believe there are lessons to learn from earlier operator content efforts.
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| 2009-12-16 |
User Data Management - A key to digital service profitability |
 | Today, interactivity and communication has become the name of the game, driven by web companies that have improved the relevance and user-friendliness of digital consumer services. User Data Management (UDM) is a key enabler for such innovation and is an umbrella term describing the creation, storage, processing and delivery of digital user data such as access credentials, identities, attributes, digital rights, etc. This paper provides our perspectives on UDM and how it best can be addressed.
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| 2009-06-21 |
Time to Top-Up the Prepaid User Experience |
 | How an effective top-up strategy can improve operator performance metrics and accelerate mobile payments
Facing flattening growth in prepaid revenue, many European operators see the need to cut costs, find new revenue sources and increase subscriber loyalty. This white paper presents the results of a Northstream study on the Western European prepaid market, with a focus on prepaid top-up and how different approaches impact operator performance metrics.
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| 2009-06-16 |
Taking the temperature on green telecom |
 | Environmentally related messages are nowadays frequent in equipment vendors’ marketing messages. Increasingly, one also meets industry representatives with titles such as “Director Environmental Affaires” and “Head of Climate Change”. Additionally, the latest Mobile World Congress in Barcelona reflected this increasing environmental focus where sustainability was one of the keywords. But how much long-term substance can be found in environmental activities and how much is merely trendy marketing?
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| 2009-04-22 |
LTE - When the time's right |
 | The next evolution step of mobile broadband technology has already appeared on the horizon: Long Term Evolution, or LTE. The technology is expected to deliver a better service experience to end users and lower cost to operators. Many industry experts believe that a number of commercial LTE launches will take place as early as 2010 - 2011. Is this a realistic expectation?
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| 2009-02-11 |
Network sharing – From paper product to bottom line impact |
 | On the outset, the benefit seems obvious; Network sharing saves cost = increased profitability
But is it always straightforward or are there pitfalls to consider? The most talked about potential downside is of course how to ensure a collaborative spirit between competitors. Another obvious one is the technical integration with the respective non-shared portions of the networks. And then there are many more, not all being visible in the early stages of Network Sharing agreements. Typical prerequisites for success are clear and thorough planning in the setup phase, agreements on how to handle CAPEX and OPEX investments, a clear decision process and steering procedure between the collaborators and the jointly owned control entity. Agreements to facilitate this setup can preferably be set up and mediated by a standalone neutral party. This white paper outlines some of the common and well known facts about Network Sharing, but – more importantly - it also addresses some of the intricacies and their maybe less obvious resolutions.
But is it always straightforward or are there pitfalls to consider? The most talked about potential downside is of course how to ensure a collaborative spirit between competitors. Another obvious one is the technical integration with the respective non-shared portions of the networks. And then there are many more, not all being visible in the early stages of Network Sharing agreements. Typical prerequisites for success are clear and thorough planning in the setup phase, agreements on how to handle CAPEX and OPEX investments, a clear decision process and steering procedure between the collaborators and the jointly owned control entity. Agreements to facilitate this setup can preferably be set up and mediated by a standalone neutral party. This white paper outlines some of the common and well known facts about Network Sharing, but – more importantly - it also addresses some of the intricacies and their maybe less obvious resolutions.
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| 2009-02-11 |
Software platforms for mobile devices |
 | The market for mobile software platforms experienced major changes in 2008, driven by the iPhone 3G launch, Symbian’s transformation and the market entry of Android. A growing number of operating systems are battling for market share and attention from the endorsement ecosystem and end users. This happens in a growing market – but industry players too easily defocus their attention from the business opportunities brought in emerging markets, where entry-level and low-end phones dominate, and growth rates of mobile internet usage are highest. Device vendors, software providers and network operators can exploit this potential through market-specific partnerships, creating profitable services even on less sophisticated devices. Strategies differ, and question is whether there can be a single winning formula?
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| 2009-02-11 |
Delivering profitable mobile broadband |
 | In many developed markets, mobile broadband experienced continued strong growth in 2008 and competes with SMS for the best selling service after voice. However, traffic and resulting costs are becoming so high that operators need to take action in order to manage profitability. The rules known from the mobile voice business no longer work: Broadband ARPU does not scale with traffic, competition comes from multiple sides, and new types of devices are needed in order to satisfy user needs. Operators are facing usage patterns where a small share of subscribers creates a large share of traffic, leading to revenue shortfalls and network quality issues. Action is needed in various areas such as network efficiency, staff, business processes and support systems.
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| 2005-10-06 |
UMA catalyses convergence revenue battle for mobile operators |
 | Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) has been a conference and presentation fixture in various forms for many years, but little has so far materialized. Now, the convergence winds of change are fast approaching storm force, whipped up not least by the strong advances of Voice over IP on the one hand and the fixed-mobile substitution trend on the other. Today, mobile operators face a real and major threat to their revenue streams. At the same time, however, they are perfectly positioned to both preserve and grow their portion of the total telecoms spend. This white paper from Northstream (part of the inCode group of leading strategy and technology advisors for the global wireless industry) outlines the current strong drivers for convergence and the tools available to handle its implications, with a special focus on the Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology.
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| 2005-08-31 |
Weighing in: VoIP over WLAN for Europe |
 | VoIP over WLAN has received considerable press coverage lately. In this white paper Northstream concluded that VoIP in general constitutes an evolution of the way operators implement the services, rather than a revolution of user behavior. The document examines VoIP over WLAN in further detail to determine which use cases are expected to generate revenue for mobile operators and wireless service providers. There are three distinct areas where VoIP over WLAN could potentially play a role: public hotspots, homes, and enterprise offices. These three are examined in the white paper.
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| 2005-03-23 |
Mobile viruses a threat, but epidemics can be stopped at the gate |
 | Mobile viruses infecting phones through Bluetooth and MMS create a growing need for the wireless industry to act. While such viruses are still rare and so far only affect smartphones, the damage they could do to users, but also to service providers and handset vendors cannot be ignored. Mobile users could be harmed by loss or modification of data, increased service bills, or reduced communication capabilities. Industry players could see revenues or brand image at risk should mobile viruses to infect a large number of handsets. Still, large-scale infections are unlikely; in this whitepaper, the independent consultancy Northstream rather concludes that mobile viruses emphasize the need for industry-wide content certification. Northstream believes that industry-wide certification initiatives such as Java Verified go into the right direction, but need to be amended to cover security testing and – at least in the short term - anti-virus software to smartphones. Concerted efforts of all industry players will ensure that users can benefit from rich application services, while being protected from potentially harmful content at the same time.
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| 2005-03-14 |
What is required for a successful people tracking service? |
 | This is an extended version of the white paper “The Next step for Location Based Services”. In this white paper we discuss the potential of a dedicated people tracking service, and take a look of a few services available on the market today. There are a number of tracking services available, but so far none of them combine an end-to-end managed service, dedicated devices and high accuracy location capabilities with consistent performance in all environments.
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| 2005-02-14 |
3G stands firm in battle with alternative access technologies |
 | Lately, alternative access technologies like WiMAX, Flarion’s FLASH-OFDM, and IPWireless’s TDD-WCDMA have frequently been mentioned in reports and trade press as potential candidates for delivering the next generation of mobile networks. At the same time, mobile operators are presented with “natural” technology evolution paths by the vendors who sold them their current 3G networks. The move towards all-IP based core networks and more data-rich applications have made it interesting for mobile operators to consider data-oriented radio networks. Some players in the market may also see an opportunity to be able to challenge the current mobile operators by deploying new access networks using newer and, potentially, more cost-efficient technology. In the white paper “Operator options beyond 3G” Northstream has studied some of the most talked-about access technologies and compared them with the cellular technologies that dominate the market today. All of them, from a mobile perspective, unconventional access technologies studied are credible technologies, which for some use cases outperform the established technologies.
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| 2005-02-13 |
The next step for Location Based Services |
 | So far Location Based Services (LBS) have not been the success many hoped for. In this white paper we argue that the foremost reasons for the slow up take are that the services offered today is simply to slow and complicated to use. We do believe in integration of LBS in many other services, but it will take some time before this is done in a way that is really appealing to end users. Already now, it is possible to introduce appealing services within certain areas. One such area is child tracking and alert or tracking and alert services for the elderly. However, a successful service will require some vertical integration, dedicated devices and end-to-end management of the service. Such a service could be delivered by existing operators, but could it be that the first ones to make it happen are the dedicated service providers?
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| 2005-02-10 |
VoIP brings opportunities – and threats – to mobile operators |
 | During the last two years, peer-to-peer voice over Internet applications like Skype and others have visualized the possibilities of the VoIP technology to masses of Internet users. The potential of VoIP however expands way beyond free long distance calls over the Internet – it is about to change the structure of service portfolios for fixed and mobile operators. This Northstream white paper outlines the implications VoIP will have on mobile operators business in the near and long term. The white paper analyses a number of upcoming application areas of VoIP that are relevant to mobile operators. It shows that the technology provides both opportunities and threats.
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| 2005-02-09 |
Succeeding with mobile enterprise services |
 | In the recent months we have seen the launch, by some operators, of new voice services for the enterprise segment such as Push-to-Talk, wireless VPN and wireless PBX. While the enterprise non-voice market is currently still dominated by text messaging and data access, more advanced services like e-mail and vertical applications are slowly gaining momentum. Evidently, business users are a major source of revenues for mobile operators and most mobile operators today see the opportunities and are already offering a set of advanced enterprise services. The strategies for offering such services, as well as breadth, depth and structure of such offerings, vary dramatically between different operators. All in all, when it comes to capturing the opportunities of advanced mobile services to enterprise users, Northstream believes that operators could do better.
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| 2004-11-12 |
Intensifying competition ensures continued mobile revenue growth |
 | Recently, Swedish mobile tariffs dropped by a startling 40 percent, a move initiated by a new entrant and quickly followed by the second largest mobile operator. While increasing competition is often seen negatively by mobile operators, Northstream white paper - Growing the mobile voice market - shows that market competition is a key driving force for continuous growth of mobile revenues. When correctly addressed, highly penetrated markets with sound competition experience a continuous growth in consumption of mobile voice and data services. Lower retail prices and innovative services can open up new market opportunities transforming mobile voice from a complementary service for fixed voice telephony to a substituting one.
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| 2004-09-16 |
High pace of irreversible fixed-to-mobile substitution |
 | Countries such as Finland and Italy have already undergone an enormous migration of voice traffic from fixed to mobile networks. If Germany were to follow a similar fixed-to-mobile substitution trend between 2004 and 2007 as Finland did between 1997 and 2001, the result would be a 300% growth in traffic and a 200% increase in revenue compared with 2003. Northstream has identified three trends that are accelerating fixed-to-mobile substitution (FMS) across Europe: (1) Increasingly mobile lifestyles demand flexible communication concepts, (2) Decreasing prices for mobile voice services lower the barrier for migrating traffic, and (3) Increased interest among service providers to undertake developments for fixed-to-mobile convergence. In this paper, Northstream presents the current market status and tries to identify reasons for the differences between markets in the Nordic region, Italy, Germany and Russia. In addition, the market dynamics of Italian, Russian and Swedish fixed-to-mobile substitution are analyzed and discussed in country case studies.
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| 2004-02-23 |
Push-to-talk over Cellular |
 | Push-to-talk is a "walkie-talkie-type" service implemented over mobile networks. US operator NexTel first introduced the service on their iDen network almost ten years ago and the service has since its introduction shown impressive growth in popularity and created quite a buzz in the mobile industry. The first steps to introduce the service on GPRS are being taken, and at the same time issues like commercial viability and technical feasibility are on many peoples’ lips. In this white paper Northstream examines the feasibility of Push-to-talk over GPRS and provides some recent interesting findings.
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| 2004-02-20 |
Content download clients - closing the gap between mobile and media industries |
 | Content download clients represent a new way of distributing mobile content to users, going beyond the established service enablers such as SMS/MMS (push content e.g. for news and sports), WAP (news browsing over a mobile portal) or media streaming (watching video clips from mobile portal). Content download clients have programs installed and executed in a phone to enable the download and display of mobile content or applications, which communicate with server software to receive content and client updates. There are both pros and cons of this way of delivering content to mobile phones, but it clearly opens up for new business opportunities in the mobile media space, ultimately enabling people to better use their phone for business and entertainment content services. Northstream untangles the business and technical aspects of content download and its potential impact on the industry.
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| 2004-02-20 |
'3' paved the way - now it's time for everyone |
 | A more widespread launch of 3G in Europe over 2004 will impact industry players in a number of ways. Many 3G operators in Europe are currently focusing on ironing out network performance issues, and waiting to ensure terminal availability, mindful of the issues faced by '3' post launch. In this white paper Northstream reviews the status of 3G launches and in particular the early lessons from the '3' operations worldwide, including service offerings and user experiences.
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| 2004-02-19 |
Mobile smart tags - RFID in cellular |
 | Imagine that you approach the subway ticket gate and the gates opens without you having to do anything, Science Fiction? No, its here already. Smart tags, or RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), identify users or trace goods and the technology has been around for many years, but the tags have however been large and expensive and the usage has been mainly in sophisticated security systems and large-scale logistic systems to follow containers etc. Lately the tags have become smaller and cheaper and are now used in ticket systems like subways road-tolls and ski passes. Combining a mobile terminal with a smart tag opens up numerous possibilities and new user behaviors. In this white paper, Northstream addresses the opportunities and issues with smart tags in the wireless world.
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| 2004-02-18 |
Fixed to Mobile Substitution |
 | Fixed to mobile substitution (FMS) offers interesting business opportunities for all types of mobile operators. The size and timing of the opportunity varies between markets and operators. Ongoing 3G network investments will impact Western European fixed to mobile substitution development, and capacity utilization will become an increasing challenge for mobile operators. Northstream discusses fixed to mobile substitution, its drivers, and business opportunities from an operator's perspective and presents key strategic operator considerations related to fixed to mobile substitution.
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